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THE MINISTRY 

TO 

THE CONGREGATION 

Lectures on fiomiletics 

BY 

JOHN A. KERN, D.D. 

PRESIDENT OF RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE 

" In preaching, the thing of least consequence is the sermon." 



$ 



NASHVILLE, TENN. 

PUBLISHING HOUSE 

OF THE 

Methodist Episcopal Church, South 

BARBEE & SMITH, Agents 






Copyright, 1897, by 
Wilbur B. Ketcham 

ui,uge 

Duke University 
MAY 7 - 1934 









TO MY OLD-TIME FRIEND AND BROTHER 
I. W. C. 
IN MEMORY OF THE DAYS WHEN IN LIKE-MINDED COMPAN- 
IONSHIP WE MADE OUR FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PREPARING TO 
PREACH THE WORD OF GOD WHICH WE HAD RECEIVED 
I INSCRIBE 
THIS RESULT OF THOSE AND MANY SIMILAR EFFORTS 
DURING THE THIRTY FLEETING YEARS 
FROM THEN TILL NOW 



PREFACE 

The following lectures represent the homiletic instruction 
given during the last ten years in the Biblical Department of 
Randolph- Macon College. 

Every teacher of practical theology is asked for his opinion 
or advice concerning the choice of books, — an entirely rea- 
sonable request, but often hard to comply with. I have 
tried to do something toward answering such inquiries, by 
mentioning, at the close of certain lectures, one or more suit- 
able books for reading on the topics discussed. No part of 
my work has received more careful attention than this appa- 
rently easy task. 

I had also prepared a series of Questions and Exercises — 
such as have been used with what seemed to be good results 
in the class-room — to accompany the treatise. This I after- 
ward decided to leave out. But I cannot refrain from remind- 
ing my readers, that to know, even perfectly, the contents of 
any mere course of instruction, is not to know homiletics. As 
Simon the son of Gamaliel said of the Law, " Practice, not 
study, is the principal thing." The several arts embraced in 
the supreme art of preaching must, like all others, be done be- 
fore they can be truly known. 

Amid many hesitations and heart-failures, a word of Dr. R.W. 
Dale to an audience of theological students has brought 
me no little encouragement. " Some men speak contemptu- 
ously," he says, " of lectures on preaching and treatises on the 



vi PREFACE 

science and art of rhetoric. For myself I have read scores of 
books of this kind, and I have never read one without finding 
in it some useful suggestion. I advise you to read every book 
on preaching that you can buy or borrow." 

These familiar Lectures, with all their defects, contain the 
best that I have ever known of homiletic thought and Chris- 
tian experience. My heart goes with them. If they shall 
prove to be a word fitly spoken to kindle the enthusiasm and 
rightly direct the energies of any ministerial student or young 
preacher into whose hands they may fall, one of his older 
brethren and co-workers will be made exceeding glad. 

Randolph-Macon College, 
September I, 1897. 



CONTENTS 

Introductory 

THE PERSONAL AIM 

The sermon and the man.— Elements of Perfection: 
Health; Taste; Knowledge and thought; Sympa- 
thetic sensibility ; Spirit and character . 

Part First 
THE MINISTRY OF WORSHIP 

Lecture I 

Uses and Hindrances 

A ministry. — Better than to hear preaching. — Not an 
emotion. — Uses: Mutually helpful to worshipers; 
A larger offering to God ; A testimony to the world. 
— Hindrances : Vanity ; Formalism ; Mental preoc- 
cupation ; Sensuousness ; Disorder 



viii CONTENTS 

Lecture II 
Forms of Worship— The Scripture Reading 

PAGE 

Necessity of forms. — Written formularies. — For the ear- 
lier rather than the later Christian life. — History of 
present rituals.— Antiquity of the custom of Scrip- 
ture reading. — The English Bible. — Is it worship? 
—What is it to read?— What is God's Word?— 
Fallacy of accent.— Sources of Power in Expression : 
Knowledge ; Imaginative realization ; Sympathy and 
determination.— Comments. — Miscellaneous hints . 28 

Lecture III 

Forms of Worship— The Hymn 

Music and prophesying. — The Reading of the Hymn: 
Need not always be read; Sympathetic realization 
of sentiment; Sense and rhythm. — The Singing: 
Who shall sing? — Congregational singing — The 
choir — The soloist — The minister; What shall we 
sing?— The Psalms— Classification of hymns- 
History of hymns, examples— Hymns of different 
eras and stages of culture— Catholicity— History 
of the hymn-book— Objectionable sentiment— 
Highly poetic hymns— Favorite hymns . . .46 

Lecture IV 

Forms of Worship— The Prayers 

Prayer and preaching. — A priesthood. — General Prepa- 
ration: The daily life; Pondering the devotional 
language of others.— Specific Preparation : An objec- 
tion ; Writing prayers. — Qualities: Reality— Favor- 
ite phrases— Extravagance— Significance of the 
divine names; Reverence— Too frequent utterance 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

of the name of God— "You" for "thou"— Ama- 
tory words — Praying at the congregation — Rhetor- 
ical finery— Speaking of God— Violence of tone- 
Hasty closing — Attitude; Explicitness — Two cau- 
tions; Sympathy; Order— An order suggested— 
Length of prayers.— The concluding prayer.— The 
Benediction : Scripture examples ; Not sacerdotal ; 
A prayer and an assurance ; Shall it be mechanical? 66 



Lecture V 

The Prayer-meeting 

The prayer-meeting and the pulpit.— Preparation; 
Personal interest.— Physical conditions.— Begin 
promptly. — A meeting of Christian communion and 
service : New Testament prayer-meetings ; Illustra- 
tion from home-life ; The people's meeting ; Chris- 
tian testimony. — Should be devotional; Must not 
despise prophesyings. — Unity in variety: Serial 
topics ; Sources of variety 84 



Part Second 
THE MINISTRY OF PREACHING 

Lecture I 

The Scripture Germ— Use, Choice 

Use: As to the underlying principle— The text the sub- 
ject; As to the advantages — An intellectual stimu- 
lus — Spiritually helpful— Reminder of the preach- 
er's commission — Promotive of variety. — Choice: 



x CONTENTS 

PAGE 

As to origin— Genuine— Correctly translated— 
Distinction noted — Proportionate; As to number 
and length— One or more?— Long or short?— 
Epitome texts 101 

Lecture II 

The Scripture Germ— Choice, Treatment 

As to language — Perspicuity — Beauty — Grotesqueness 
— Familiarity; As to contents — Fruitfulness — 
Completeness. — Methods of Treatment: Topical; 
Textual; Textual-Topical 118 

Lecture III 

Exposition— Principles 

Preaching and sermons. — The Bible a testimony to be 
interpreted. — The original languages. — Reading and 
reading. — Principles: Must be natural— Figures — 
Literal language— Popular and literary language — 
Theological pre-judgments — Homiletic distortions 
— The local and the essential . . . .131 

Lecture IV 

Exposition— Principles, Expository Sermons 

Must be contextual; Spiritually true; Homiletic— Ex- 
pository Sermons: Not uninteresting; No lack of 
materials; Unity of thought; Unity of purpose . 144 

Lecture V 

Argument— Limitations, Positive Principles 

Estimate of the value of argument. — Latent argumenta- 
tion.— Limitations: Not distinctive of Christian 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



preaching; Controversial sermons; Definition of 
terms.— Positive Principles: Real; Constructive . 159 

Lecture VI 

Argument— Positive Principles 

Colloquial; Select and brief; Truthful; Just— Analogy 

— Induction — Deduction 173 

Lecture VII 

Argument — Christian Testimony 

Its Nature and Claim : Two motives to preach ; Con- 
scious and unconscious testimony; Variety. — Its 
Validity : Consciousness ; Not a peculiar experience ; 
Misinterpretations. — Its Authority: Official author- 
ity; Personal; Spiritual 185 

Lecture VIII 

Description 

The imagination. — Details should not be given. — Exam- 
ples of biblical description. — Get possession of the 
facts. — Look upon the scene. — Not an antiquarian 
spirit. — Description for the sake of truth. — Narra- 
tion . . .198 

Lecture IX 

Illustration— Classes, Discovery 

What are illustrations : For realization ; Illustrative fig- 
ures ; Symbols ; Examples ; Rhetorical and logical. 
—Where to Find Illustrations : Not in the unknown ; 
The common stock ; Books of illustrations ; General 
reading ; The Scriptures ; One's own life . . 209 



xii CONTENTS 

Lecture X 
Illustrations— Discovery, Use 

PAGE 

Common observation; The assembled congregation. 
— How to Find Illustrations: The faculty of seeing 
resemblances ; Get first-hand knowledge ; Be sure of 
your facts; Note-book. — Use of Illustrations: Not 
too many; Not too long; Literary form . .219 

Lecture XI 

Persuasion 

Supremely important. — Reasons for action and feelings 
prompting action. — Suitable Motives : Self-love ; The 
sense of duty; Love. — Principles of Choice: Adap- 
tation; Comparative excellence. — Natural affection. 
— The way of Access to the Motives : Through the 
intellect; By the help of the emotions . . .232 

Lecture XII 

The Proposition— Importance, Contents 

Sometimes not needed; Formless sermons. — Its Con- 
tents : Admissible propositions ; Perfect ; Good — 
Embodying the most striking truth — Evolving prin- 
ciple from instance; Allowable — Embodying sub- 
ordinate truth— General principle to be specifically 
applied — Too general a truth — Merely naming the 
text 247 

Lecture XIII 

The Proposition— Contents, Form 

Inadmissible Propositions : No connection with the text ; 
Merely suggested by the text— Accommodation ; 



CONTENTS xiii 

PAGE 

Degrading to the text.— Its Form: As to structure 
—Declarative— Titular— Interrogative; As to lan- 
guage 258 

Lecture XIV 

The Divisions— Principle, Discovery 

Disparagement of divisions. — Principle: Necessity of 
order to thought and speech; Objections— "Scho- 
lastic "— " Obstructive "— " Unfavorable to unity " 
—"Not oratorical"; Example.— Discovery : A 
matter of interpretation 271 

Lecture XV 

The Divisions— Discovery, Invention 

Making unreal distinctions ; Making too prominent dis- 
tinctions; Ascribing fanciful meanings; Dispropor- 
tionate elaboration. — Invention: Finding divisions 
and materials together ; Choosing the point of view 
—Examples; Concentration of thought . .282 

Lecture XVI 

The Divisions— Requisites, Minor Topics 

Original; Apposite; Coordinate; Few in number; 
Strong and suggestive ; Precisely expressed ; In ora- 
torical order. — Announcement; Similarity of struc- 
ture ; Subdivisions 299 

Lecture XVII 

The Amplification 

Intellectual acts : Memory ; Imagination ; Logical in- 
sight; Verbal expression.— Action of the will: 
Materials already gained ; After-thoughts ; The up- 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

lifted heart; Attention; Reading. — Materials: Ex- 
planation ; Argument ; Description and illustration ; 
Exhortation and practical inference. — The Product : 
Relevant; Continuous; In oratorical order; Ade- 
quate; Proportionate 312 

Lecture XVIII 

The Introduction 

The classic doctrine. — Objects: Explanation; Gaining 
good will; Exciting interest; Rendering teachable. 
— Relation to the subject. — Qualities : Specific ; Dis- 
tinct from what follows ; Easily intelligible ; Varied ; 
Proportionate 327 

Lecture XIX 

The Conclusion 

Necessity and Difficulty : Self-application ; Preaching is 
persuasion; Why the conclusion is slighted. — Rela- 
tion to the whole Application : Distributed throughout 
the sermon ; Compact at the close ; Both distributed 
and compact; The application of the last division 
the conclusion. — Materials and Forms: Recapitula- 
tion ; Illustration ; Inference ; Exhortation . . 340 

Lecture XX 

Literary Form 

Its inevitableness.— Importance of its cultivation.— All- 
comprehensive quality. — Means of Development: 
General development of the man ; Conversation ; 
Familiarity with one's own language ; Constant writ- 
ing and speaking; A full mind.— The true mental 
attitude 358 



CONTENTS 3 

Lecture XXI 
Literary Form— Effects of the Mental Attitude 

Naturalness ; Clearness ; Ease and fluency ; Picturesque 



PAGE 



$v 



Lecture XXII 

The Spirit of the Sermon 

Danger of formality.— Humanity : A Christian spirit; 
Man as man; The unearthly style of preaching; 
Scholastic seclusion.— Spirituality : Sympathy; Re- 
sponse of the human heart; Unction.— Mingled 
humanity and spirituality ; Jesus as a preacher . 384 

Lecture XXIII 

Order— Repetition— Some Special Occasions 

Order: Required by the teaching element; Serial ser- 
mons ; Considerations — Doctrine — Circumstances 
and outward conditions — Experience — The people. 
— Repetition of Sermons: To same congregation; 
To different congregations ; The old sermon to be 
retouched, not burned. — Special Themes and Occa- 
sions : Funerals ; Missionary preaching . . -397 

Lecture XXIV 

Social Themes 

Temperance; Pauperism; Trade; Government; Indus- 
trial conditions and movements . . . .412 

Lecture XXV 

The Preacher before the Children 

The Opportunity : Reactive effect ; Effects on parents ; 
Possibilities of the child; The Sunday-school. — 
Conditions of Success: Good methods; Prepara- 



xvi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

tion ; Sympathy ; Vivacity ; Imaginative power ; 
Moral earnestness ; Knowledge and discrimination 425 

Lecture XXVI 

The Preacher as an Evangelist 

Principles of Revivals: Times of fullness of life; The 
power of personal presence; Repetition of impres- 
sions ; The times and seasons in the power of God. 
— Promotion and Conduct of Revivals: Plans; 
Purity of motive ; Personal work ; The preaching ; 
Acts of committal ; Guidance of the penitent ; De- 
termination and hopefulness . . . . 441 

Lecture XXVII 

Preparation of the Sermon with Reference to 
its Delivery 
General or habitual preparation only.— To prepare a gen- 
eral outline only. — To write and read. — To write 
and preach memoriter.— To think out the sermon 
verbally and preach memoriter.— To prepare a full 
outline and preach extempore. — To write in full and 
preach extempore 455 

Lecture XXVIII 
Personal Preparation 

The sermon not yet made.— The man in the preaching. 
—The natural and the acquired.— Elocution.— 
Specific personal preparation: Physical— Rest- 
Food; Spiritual 471 

Lecture XXIX 
The Twofold Action in Speech 
Agent and instrument.— The body: Voice; Facial ex- 
pression, attitude, and motion. — The Soul: Self- 
abandonment; Embarrassment . . . -485 



CONTENTS xvii 

Lecture XXX 

The Action of the Soul— on Subject, Audience, 
Object 

PAGE 

On the Subject— On the Audience: The writer, the 
speaker ; The lawyer ; Eloquence is colloquial ; The 
apathetic hearer ; In touch with hearers ; The con- 
versational basis ; Individualizing the congregation ; 
Examples; Testimony. — On the Object: Pleasing 
the hearers ; Subjects and objects ; The exertion of 
will-power 495 

Lecture XXXI 

Extemporaneous Preaching— In the Act 

What is extemporaneous preaching? — The preeminence 
of this method.— Suggestions : Be content with your 
present self ; Discriminate between relevant and ir- 
relevant thought; Irrelevancy better than silence; 
Will to utter the thought; Let the soul be impres- 
sible to the audience; Press on ; Reserved force; 
Know when to quit; Trust yourself to God . .509 

Concluding Lecture 

The Tongue of Fire 

God in the natural world. — In human life. — In the spirit- 
ual life. — In the preaching of His own Word. — 
Prophets, apostles, present-day preachers. — Condi- 
tions : A sincere and holy life ; Faithful use of natu- 
ral powers; The prayer of faith.— Success.— The 
present opportunity 526 



INTRODUCTORY 

THE PERSONAL AIM 

WE cannot too well remember that what a man does is the 
expression of what he is. To be is first, both in the order 
of thought and of fact; then to do. Every act shows some 
attitude of the soul. Not only the general course of our con- 
duct, but also the special work of our various callings and pur- 
suits, is the inner life taking outward form. This is eminently 
true of public speaking, and preeminently true of the preaching 
of the Gospel. The carpenter builds himself into his house, the 
work of his hands bearing witness either for him or against him. 
We hear the musician's soul in his music, and read the author's 
in his book. But the human soul has come into possession of 
an incomparably fuller and finer art of expression in speech. 
True, the orator speaks a few times and then is silent, while 
the author writes for the years or the centuries ; but no such 
glowing and penetrative life-forces flow from the pen as are 
poured forth from the gates of speech so long as these are 
open. And no speaker is under necessity of declaring the life 
that is in him so completely as the Christian preacher. He 
must speak as a good man out of the good treasure of his 
heart, and may keep back nothing. Knowledge, thought, sen- 
sibility, will-power, spiritual experience and character, — in all 
these must he submit to stand revealed before the congregation, 
if he would preach not himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord. 
Preaching, it is true, when reduced to its simplest terms, is 
1 



2 INTRODUCTORY 

lifting up the Cross, that sinful men may look and live. But 
does it matter nothing how this shall be done ? If so, write 
out the message in a few impersonal words, print it along the 
highways, and the end is gained. Why has the Lord ordained 
that His disciples' faces and tongues and souls shall declare His 
Gospel ? Human selfishness has no place whatsoever in Chris- 
tian preaching, but the human self must enter into it wholly. 

Homiletics, then, is more than the theory and art of sermon- 
making. It does not begin even with the preacher as such, 
but with the man himself. There is no escape from this re- 
quirement. Were we intrusted with plenary apostolic inspira- 
tion we should still be, as the Apostles were, not God's 
telephones or speaking-tubes, but His speakers. The word of 
salvation, indeed, is not the preacher's own, and he should re- 
ceive it, through meditation, prayer, and study of the Scrip- 
tures, immediately from God ; but it is his part to receive it, 
and the utterance of it is his own human and personal act. 
Only through each man's own personality can he know and 
communicate the truth. So, what manner of men we are, even 
in our secret soul, will appear in our preaching. 

Very appropriate, then, is the prayer, " Lord, what wilt Thou 
have me to be ? " 

What is the Christian ideal manhood? The answer is much 
too large to be given here, but the chief directions in which it 
will be found may be indicated. Personal perfection is to be 
sought : 

i. In health. Whatever may be true of pietism or asceti- 
cism, Christianity does not undervalue the body. How could 
it when, through the mysterious unity of our nature, neglect or 
maltreatment of the body tends to injure the soul, and when 
it is only through their bodies that souls can become known to 
one another? 

" Let us not always say, 
' Spite of this flesh to-day 
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.' 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

As the bird wings and sings, 

Let us cry, 'All good things 

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul.' " 

A call to preach is, for one thing, a call to have as perfect 
physical purity and vigor as possible. For the preacher's body 
must enter no less truly than his soul into all his ministrations. 
Ten thousand sermons every Sunday are made feeble by feeble 
nerves, or heavy by heavy limbs, or repellent by acidity of the 
stomach. Ten thousand are sweetened and vivified by the 
pure tone of physical vitality in the preacher. 

What is health ? Not muscular agility, nor stature, nor fatty 
tissue. It is not even strength, though promotive of it. The 
brawniest man is not always the healthiest, and an unmuscular 
man may have perfect soundness of body. Health is that 
physical state in which all the organs harmoniously perform 
their functions. Above all things else it is nervous energy ; 
to be prodigal of which is suicidal. " Better to lose a pint of 
blood than to have a nerve tapped." Health is painlessness 
and vitality. We want enough of it not simply to keep us off 
the sick-list, but to make it a joy to live. Think of Wesley on 
his eighty-fifth birthday making the record in his journal that 
he feels " no such thing as weariness either in traveling or 
preaching," and that he is able to write sermons as readily as 
he ever could, and ascribing it in part to his having had so 
little pain in his life, and having never lost a night's sleep, sick 
or well, on land or sea, since he was born! I noticed in my 
paper this morning that Mr. Gladstone, in the same year of 
his age, has resigned his office as Premier of England; not 
however because of any impairment of his general health or 
intellectual vigor. On meeting a man of this type it is not 
worth while to inquire about his health. He never complains. 
There are others of whom it is equally unnecessary to make 
the inquiry; the answer may be anticipated: "Something of 
a headache, indigestion, nervous prostration, overwork." They 
are never well. Ordinarily it is their own fault, and instead 



4 INTRODUCTORY 

of unmanly calls for sympathy, the case demands penitence 
and reformation. 

To nurse and coddle one's health, to take a womanish 
pleasure in referring to one's ailments, to think it interesting to 
spend one's life in a state of chronic valetudinarianism, is a 
wretched sort of self-exaltation. Susannah Arnold, sister to 
Arnold of Rugby, through a daily martyrdom of twenty years 
of pain, " adhered to her early formed resolution of never talk- 
ing about herself." Before which womanly strength and sub- 
limity of soul many a one who claims the reverence due a 
man and a minister of Christ appears at a shameful disad- 
vantage. 

The measure of physical energy of which you find yourself 
this moment possessed may be kept or wasted, increased or 
diminished. In food, in sleep, in breathing, in exercise, in all 
physical habits, honor the laws of God in your body. Culti- 
vate a disrelish for late hours. Sleep for recuperation, not for 
self-indulgence. Encourage the appetite for the pure air of 
heaven and do not fear taking it too freely. Conscientiously 
abstain from lounging and all bodily inertness. Less food and 
more exercise would be good advice to many ministers and 
ministerial students. 

Let it be admitted that even with impaired health a good 
day's work may be done. The number is not small of great 
souls, mighty in word and deed, embarrassed by feeble and 
ailing bodies. The Apostle to the Gentiles had his " infirmity 
in the flesh," and Timothy his " often infirmities." Of Calvin, 
Baxter, and Tholuck it has been said that they " did their work 
along the brink of the valley of death." Bernard of Clairvaux 
was a man of incessant activity, the most influential Christian 
of his day, and yet with health so broken by the severities of 
self-discipline as to have been " really a wretched invalid dur- 
ing all his public life." Robert Hall was a sickly-looking child, 
and much of his life was spent in heroic endurance of disease 
and pain. Fletcher of Madeley was a consumptive. Francis 



INTRODUCTORY 6 

Asbury had " headaches, toothaches, chills, fevers, and sore 
throats for his traveling companions." Moses Stuart was not 
strong enough to study more than three hours a day. Spurgeon 
was hardly ever physically well, and sometimes hobbled in 
agony to his pulpit. Still we should be very blind not to dis- 
criminate between instruments and obstacles, between through 
the use of and in spite of. God may make His strength per- 
fect in weakness, but we are to set no thorn in our own flesh. 
Choose to live — in the widest sense of the word, to live — for 
Christ, while it is always your earnest expectation and hope 
that Christ may be magnified in your body, " whether it be by 
life or by death." 

2. In taste. The sense of beauty is universal. One of the 
first words the child learns to say is the word pretty. The 
Spanish adventurers in America were surprised that the In- 
dians should so readily barter a lump of silver or gold for a 
little hawk's-bell; but the Indian showed surprise that the 
Spaniard should be willing to exchange so charming a toy for 
a lump of gold. The earliest form of literature is poetry, with 
its inevitable accompaniment of music ; both of them attempts 
to give sensible expression to the spirit of beauty. 

Internal craving is met by external fact. There is nothing 
more common than beautiful things. What is their deepest 
meaning? What word of God do they bring us? 

They symbolize the glory and excellence of the spiritual 
mind. These things are an allegory. Whoever has skill to 
read it has found a language in which to speak of the interior 
life of the soul. How are we affected in contemplating a cruel 
or a treacherous or a fleshly character? Sickened and repelled, 
as if our eyes had fallen upon some loathsome and disgusting 
object. But to witness an act of moral heroism, of disinter- 
ested kindness, of self-renouncing pursuit of truth, of high- 
souled purity and uprightness, — with what peculiar admiration 
and gladness does it thrill the heart! We have seen the spir- 
itually beautiful. " Whose adorning, ... let it be the hidden 



6 INTRODUCTORY 

man of the heart, in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and 
quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." 

Moreover, is there not in these broken lights of earthly 
beauty a prophetic hint of the heavenly world? For, accord- 
ing to the very law of our minds, we pass upward from the im- 
perfect to the complete, from the type to the antitype, from the 
real to the ideal (which is most truly the real) ; and so we learn 
that this strange glory that rests upon the earth must be the ex- 
ponent of that unutterable and unimagined glory " within the 
veil." No man, not even the extremest Puritan or Quaker, 
has ever pictured to himself an ugly heaven. 

Is not the beautiful in material things an expression even 
of something glorious in God's own nature? While Charles 
Kingsley lay on his death-bed he was heard repeating to him- 
self the words, " How beautiful is God ! " It was no irreverent 
familiarity. For what has the Psalmist said? " Let the beauty 
of the Lord our God be upon us." The fountain of beauty is 
in the heart of the Eternal, and the fair and lovely things of 
creation are one of the lines of light along which the reverent 
and imaginative mind ascends to Him. 

The glad interpretative perception of beauty in nature and 
art, and its close congener, the sense of the becoming in man- 
ners and conduct, is good taste. It does not follow the fash- 
ions, but is often in antagonism to them. Like every other 
natural endowment, it is given to some persons in larger mea- 
sure than to others, and in all it may be either appreciated and 
improved or despised. Not infrequently it has been prosti- 
tuted to vile uses, as when it casts the charm of poetry, music, 
painting, or graceful manners about the desecrated objects of 
vice. It served the tempter's purpose in Eden, but its true 
spirit and purpose is divine. Can we imagine our Lord as do- 
ing an unrefined or unseemly act? 

3. In knowledge and thought. Beginning life, as we do, ab- 
solutely ignorant, and having so few years in which to learn, 
it is very little we shall ever know in this world. And for the 



INTRODUCTORY 7 

start that can be made, — the knowing "in part" and "in a 
mirror darkly," — we are largely indebted to teachers whom we 
have never seen. Even in such a library as you may soon 
gather you will keep company, heart to heart, with the gifted 
and good of your own and of long-past ages. 

Surely no Christian can speak slightingly of books, since it 
has pleased God that His self-revelation in Israel and in Jesus 
Christ should be recorded and sent down to all subsequent 
ages in the books of the Bible. In all true literature, phi- 
losophy, and science the Eternal Reason is speaking, and those 
who have ears to hear receive His words. But through the 
Apostles and prophets, and above all through the incarnate 
Word, God has given the perfect revelation of His law and 
His love. Are all other books rendered thereby insignificant 
or valueless ? I have heard some such sentiment expressed in 
the pulpit, but it is more Mohammedan than Christian. It is 
similar logic to the famous dilemma by which the burning of 
the great library of Alexandria was justified : " If the books 
contain the same doctrine as the Koran they are useless ; if 
their doctrine is contrary to the Koran it is false." The Bible 
adds a new significance to all good and true books. They 
cannot but enlarge our knowledge of that God whom we know 
as Father and Saviour through the Book only. 

But for none of these must the Bible itself be neglected. 
Read it and think it, on various methods, through and 
through. 

Some persons show a love of letters which is a lifelong 
passion. They read, not because they must, but because they 
may, and not with the puerile ambition of being able to ask, 
" Have you read such a book? " but with the insatiable desire 
for knowledge and intellectual stimulus. They are likely to 
feel painfully their limitations, for it has been estimated that 
to read those books only which were the standards of their 
times would require three thousand years. But though it were 
possible, it would not be profitable to read even all the " stan- 



8 INTRODUCTORY 

dards." None but the best, new and old, and these wisely 
chosen with reference to each man's noblest purpose, may be 
taken as the rule. 

But there are dangers besetting the reader's path. He may 
become a bookworm, which, as I understand it, is one who 
has sunk the end in the means. Or he may lower the tone of 
his own thinking by submitting too constantly to that of other 
minds. Suppose a man should keep listening all the time to 
some other man's talk, with hardly a word or a thought of his 
own. Would he not dwindle into a mental weakling? And 
what is reading, at least as commonly practised, but listening 
to an unseen talker? The preacher is sometimes heard com- 
plaining that he has to speak so much in comparison with the 
time that he has for reading. But this necessity is really an 
opportunity. Here, as elsewhere, it is better to give than to 
receive. The preacher has the inestimable advantage of mak- 
ing his knowledge immediately available in his ministry. Thus 
it becomes truly his own ; knowledge deepens into thought, and 
the mental powers are developed through their higher and more 
original processes. For what is the mind? Not a cup to be 
filled, but an eye to be cleared, an arm to be strengthened. 
The question is not so much, Have I read what has been 
written on this subject? as it is, Can I think the subject? 
It was said by Mrs. Browning in a letter to a friend : " I 
should be wiser, I am persuaded, if I had not read half so 
much ; should have had stronger and better-exercised faculties, 
and should stand higher in my own approbation." 

Or, still again, it is possible for the reader to degenerate into 
that wretchedly contracted state of mind in which it is hard to 
care for any truth or fact unless it be written in a book ; 
whereas it is important that we should keep our eyes as wide 
open outside the study as within. Are we not as truly in 
God's wonderful world, surrounded with objects of knowledge 
innumerable, as were any of our cherished authors in their day? 
Learn from everything. Be interested in men, not merely in 



INTRODUCTORY 9 

character, but in characters. Said a ship-builder to a preacher : 
" When I listen to some preachers I can build a whole ship, but 
this morning, I declare, I could not lay a single plank." 
"How is that?" "Because you spoke like one who knew 
just what I needed, and I could not withdraw my attention 
from you for a moment." The words of the woman of Samaria 
are homiletically suggestive : " Come, see a man, who told 
me all things that ever I did." He is an ignorant minister 
who is ignorant of human nature. Do not ignore the news- 
paper. Be men of your time. Know its virtues, its faults, its 
needs, its possibilities ; and thus learn how to approach it with 
that which it needs more than anything else, the truth about 
Him who is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." It 
is not especially if at all important that you should be what 
are called " learned " men ; but it is of the highest importance 
that you should have first-hand views of Scripture, of nature, 
of the soul, of the dispositions and doings of your fellows, of 
each man's relations to God. To help us in this, to cause us 
to "believe in life rather than in books," is one of the chief 
functions of learning. 

Nevertheless, most Christians are not, in any proper sense of 
the word, readers. Indeed, the same thing may be said of 
many ministers of Christ. They glance over the newspaper, 
or perhaps the review, but they do not read. Not one book 
that is worthy of the name, old or new, big or little, do they 
make their own in a year. They may have a collegiate edu- 
cation, but they have not learned to read. Their intellectual 
life is poor and barren. 

" Brethren, be not children in mind : howbeit in malice be 
ye babes, but in mind be men " (i Cor. xiv. 20). 

4. In sympathetic sensibility. It is by this power that we 
know other souls. When an observer would realize a material 
object it is not enough to see it ; he puts forth his hand and 
touches it. This gives the full sense of its reality ; he knows 
it because he has felt it. In like manner the intellect is the 



10 INTRODUCTORY 

eye with which we see other souls, but the sensibility is the 
hand with which we touch them. 

We were made for one another. It is impossible that a man 
should so pervert his nature as to become absolutely a solitaire. 
But as to the genial recognition of the presence of others, the 
quick response to their looks and words, the entrance by sym- 
pathy into their lives, the range of difference in individuals is 
very wide. Some are stolid and self-engrossed ; they are never 
known to laugh heartily ; their eyes are dry and seem to be 
looking within, if anywhere. Their expression in conversation 
is indifferent or critical rather than receptive. Your most 
vivacious questions and appeals kindle so uncertain a light on 
their faces that you are disposed to feel ashamed, as if guilty 
of some unseemly demonstration. Others instinctively take 
your mood upon themselves, not necessarily to linger in it or 
reflect it back, but perhaps in a little while to lift you into 
theirs. Their greeting is cordial, their parting tender, their 
whole manner responsive and inspiring. From which of these 
two classes would you prefer to have a companion on a festive 
occasion, or in time of perplexity and suffering— or at any other 
time ? Which is the completer soul ? 

Of all men the public speaker can least afford to be sym- 
pathetically insensible. His mind may work with the unvary- 
ing accuracy of a logical machine and his style be crystal clear, 
but unless there be the magnetic thrill of sympathy between 
him and his audience the speech is simply from intellect to in- 
tellect, not from heart to heart, not from man to man. 

To live too much in the sensations will blunt the finer sensi- 
bilities. But not only sensuality, worldliness also, ambition, any 
indulgence of selfishness, tends rapidly to weaken and waste 
the humanity of our nature. Complete absorption in an in- 
tellectual pursuit may have a similar effect. There is even a 
type of religion in which stoicism, or an unsocial mysticism, or 
a narrow conscientiousness has permitted the springs of human 
affection to dry up. Good men, willing, if need be, to die for 



INTRODUCTORY 11 

their convictions, but cold, austere, censorious, whom little 
children do not like to be with, are both in our congregations 
and in our pulpits. They have missed the graciousness and 
the compassion of Jesus. 

5. In spirit and character. Here we touch the very summit 
and crown of our nature. If it be true that "there is nothing 
great on earth but man, and nothing great in man but mind," 
it is true in the same sense that there is nothing great in mind 
but character. The earth would seem to have reached its 
highest end in becoming the scene of human activity, the 
birthplace, trial-ground, and training- ground of man. Wherein 
does man reach his highest end? Not in becoming perfect in 
body, in taste, in intellect, in sensitiveness of soul, but in at- 
taining a right spiritual character. It were infinitely better for 
any one of us to be diseased in body, unrefined, ignorant, and 
emotionally sluggish, but genuinely conscientious, sincerely 
good, than, lacking this, to have all other possible gifts and 
acquisitions. 

By the spirit of a man is meant the sum total of the feelings, 
the motives, that habitually influence him ; by his character is 
meant the habitual attitude of his will under this influence. 
The distinguishing greatness of character is that, being a state 
of the will, it is a state of freedom. This makes it more one's 
own and one's self than anything else can be. Here only does 
man become man ; for all the way up from the dust beneath 
our feet to the intellect and the sensibility of the soul, is there 
the region of necessity, and hence the utter absence of person- 
ality. Who are you ? The question means essentially, What 
is the course of self-determinations, of free choices, that you 
are making, through the motives that have power over your 
will from day to day? For example, you have some difficult 
intellectual'work to do ; and the flesh rebels, the thoughts are 
inclined to play the vagrant. It would be so much easier to 
take up some lighter occupation. But the higher motives are 
also insistent. Now, whether you will faithfully endeavor to 



12 INTROD UCTOR Y 

do that [tiresome work or not depends upon no system of 
necessity, either in the body or the soul, but upon your true 
personal self. Or you believe it a duty to make some com- 
munication to a friend that will cost you embarrassment and 
pain. The temptation is to put it off indefinitely. Which 
will be done? Every day, every hour, are we thus called on 
to decide between the flesh and the spirit, the good and the 
evil. And it is such familiar, constantly occurring cases that 
are the revelation of a man to himself and his fellow-men. 

Shall we make a distinction between morality and religion? 
Truly speaking, there is none. To live in obedience to the 
commands of conscience is to be a moral man ; but to live in 
obedience to the commands of conscience is to recognize the 
presence and obey the words of God, in whatever measure He 
may be pleased to make Himself known, and this is religion. 
May we regard the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on 
the Mount as summaries of the moral law? No man can ac- 
cept them as the rule of life without becoming a worshiper and 
an obedient child of God. 

What is perfection of character? The ancients would have 
returned various answers to the question, each containing some 
elements of truth. But the modern conception of man is 
greatly different from that of the old world, and the change is 
due to the influence of that one Life which has proved itself to 
be supremely " the light of men." The ideal of character be- 
came actual in Jesus. The Son of God, Himself is the inter- 
pretation of His own words : " Ye therefore shall be perfect, 
as your heavenly Father is perfect." Great was the variety of 
circumstances and relations in which Jesus appeared, — as a 
child and as a man, in work and in suffering, in the home, in 
church, among His friends, in the face of His enemies, before 
the multitude, at the wedding, in the chamber of death, on 
trial for His life, in the death of the cross. In them all He 
lived in perfect sonship to God and perfect love to men. 
Such a heart and spirit had never been manifested in a human 



INTRODUCTORY 13 

life before. Those who have shown most of it since gladly and 
gratefully acknowledge that it is not of themselves, but through 
communion with Him. Those who refuse to call Him Lord 
still find it difficult to rest in any ideal of man save that which 
He has perfectly exemplified. It shines by its own light, show- 
ing itself divine ; so that to " attain unto a full-grown man " is 
self-evidently to " attain unto the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ." And as to the future, the largest hope that 
a human heart has ever cherished for itself is that of the Chris- 
tian disciple : " We know that, if He shall be manifested, we 
shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him even as He is." In 
Christ the possibilities of our own souls appear; in Christ 
is the power to realize them. 

The personal ideal is the same for all men, without reference 
to vocation. And in this— not in any special gifts, and still 
less in special training — is the first great secret of preaching. 
The sermon will be as the preacher, the preacher as the man, 
the man as the character. So the fundamental preparation to 
preach is in that which is common to men rather than in the 
specific or the extraordinary; not in the composition of the 
sermon, nor in the putting of ourselves into the best possible 
condition, physical, intellectual, and spiritual, just before its de- 
livery ; not in what we have got together for an occasion, but 
in what we are, out of the pulpit and all the time. The school- 
boy who expresses himself so feebly in the recitation-room is 
eloquent and forcible enough among his companions outside ; 
because it is himself that now speaks, not a lesson crammed 
for a temporary and unwelcome purpose. Some men are feeble 
in the pulpit because they are men who cannot be themselves 
there. The sermon is more or less a hothouse plant ; the whole 
natural movement and force of a consecrated Christian life is 
not in it. I have heard a minister of the Gospel, whose ordi- 
nary conversation was extremely trivial and jocular, defend him- 
self on the ground that he was always serious in preaching. 
In other words, he did not take himself into the pulpit. 



14 INTRODUCTORY 

A preacher says : " To-morrow is Sunday, and I am not 
ready ; I must get up something to say." Another says : " I 
shall have to preach to-morrow ; I must go to work and pre- 
pare myself, so as to be in good condition." A third says : 
" It will soon be Sunday, and I shall have the glad opportu- 
nity to speak the word of life to the people." Which is the true 
preacher? 

Read "The Imitation of Christ," Dr. Stalker's "Imago Christi," 
Dr. Mark Hopkins's " Strength and Beauty." 



Part First 
THE MINISTRY OF WORSHIP 

SCHEME 

I. Uses and Hindrances 
II. Forms of Worship 

i. The Scripture Reading 

2. The Hymn 

3. The Prayers 
III. The Prayer-meeting 



15 



And he said, Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory.— Ex. xxxiii. 18. 

I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear ; 
But now mine eye seeth Thee, 
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent 
In dust and ashes. —Job xlii. 5, 6. 

So have I looked upon Thee in the sanctuary, 
To see Thy power and Thy glory. 
For Thy loving kindness is better than life ; 
My lips shall praise Thee.— Ps. lxiii. 2, 3. 

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose 
name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is 
of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to 
revive the heart of the contrite ones.— Isa. lvii. 15. 

For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I 
in the midst of them. — Matt, xviii. 20. 

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.— Acts ii. 4. 

Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that 
we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be 
the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever 
and ever.— Eph. iii. 20, 21. 

And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God the Almighty, and the 
Lamb, are the temple thereof.— Rev. xxi. 22. 



16 



LECTURE I 

USES AND HINDRANCES 

THE conduct of public worship is, like preaching, a minis- 
try. True, the minister's utterance of praise and prayer 
is not to the congregation, but it is made before the congrega- 
tion and with the express 'purpose that it may also become 
theirs. He brings an offering to the altar and says to the 
people : " It is yours and mine ; let us offer it together unto the 
Lord." 

As regards the people. It is well to listen with sympathetic 
attention to the sermon, but it is better to worship God. In- 
deed, is not the very object of the sermon to bring men near 
to God, to make the hearer a worshiper? For what higher 
act can any created being do than freely to give himself back 
to the divine Source of his life and enter into holy communion 
with Him ? Only then is the circle of life completed, — when 
the soul of its own will returns, full of reverent love, to its 
Creator. There, with God, reconciled by the Cross, may be 
found the power and blessedness of eternal life. To worship 
God, whether in secret or in the congregation, is holiness and 
salvation. Are you ready to be a leader in it ? 

Now there can be no worship without some kind of religious 
emotion, more or less ardent,— contrition, awe, gratitude, ador- 
ing wonder, peace, joy, hope ; but its deeper element, the very 
heart of worship, is not an emotion, but a motive. Christian 
adoration is a spiritual act. 

17 



18 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

I. What are some of the Uses of congregational worship? 

i. It is mutually helpful to the worshipers. Christianity, it 
is true, revealed the worth of the individual soul. It took each 
man out of the mass into a direct personal relation with God, 
and awakened in him the most vivid consciousness of himself 
as a personal and accountable being,— the very opposite of 
that Greek philosophy in which the state appears as everything 
and the individual as nothing. " So then every one of us shall 
give account of himself to God." "Joy shall be in heaven 
over one sinner that repenteth." But, observe, this intense 
individuality finds its counterpart in that strong social unity 
which it renders possible. The Christian brotherhood arises, 
— the ecclesia, the church, — and places of conference and con- 
gregational worship are found as naturally and inevitably as 
any family, in poverty or in affluence, will find a house and 
make it a home. The saintliest soul is there with the feeblest 
beginner in religion, the nobleman and the slave, all in need 
of this communion of souls in communion with God. " I long 
to see you," writes Paul to the Christians in Rome, " that I 
may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may 
be established ; that is, that I with you may be comforted in 
you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine " 
(Rom. i. ii, 12). 

We speak of this worship as " services," " religious services," 
"service," "divine service," and advertise it to take place at 
such a time. The word liturgy, in like manner, means lit- 
erally a public ministry or service ; but the only sense in which 
such terms are applicable seems to be generally lost sight of. 
Do we serve God by asking for His blessings, by acknowledg- 
ing the bestowment of them upon us, by devoutly meditating 
upon His Word? Rather are we now receiving, and it is our 
heavenly Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, who is serving 
us. Out in the world, striving to extend His kingdom, doing 
good to the bodies and souls of men, we are employed in the 
service of God. But so far as worship is consecration it is giv- 



USES AND HINDRANCES 19 

ing ourselves to God for this service. So far as we bring an 
offering of money to His house we may be said to serve Him. 
Besides, in congregational worship we serve one another. The 
part which each takes is, with reference to the others, a min- 
istration ; especially, as we have seen, is the minister, both as 
preacher and as devotional leader, the servant of all. And 
this is " divine service." In a Sunday-school session or a re- 
vival both worship and service are prominent. 

From a misconception of the liturgic or ministrative idea 
arises the vain multiplication of rites, the worshiping of God 
" with men's hands, as though He needed anything." On the 
other hand, the due appreciation of this idea, while not hin- 
dering the devotional spirit, will call forth the spirit of brotherly 
sympathy and help. 

2. This being so, we make a new and larger offeritig to God. 
Only in society does man become truly man. Think of a 
human being who had grown up in utter solitude. What 
would he be? Without language, without love, without intel- 
ligence, without morality, without religion. In association 
with our fellows, not only dormant affections, but conscience 
and will are aroused, and the whole heart enlarged. It is not 
until we lose ourselves in sympathy with others that we find 
our truer self. Accordingly, when men come to unite in un- 
selfish fellowship it is a whole that is greater than the sum of 
all its parts. And when they come and worship God together 
it is a new and larger self that each offers to Him. The chorus 
is greater than the single voice not only in volume, but also in 
an added element : melody has become harmony. 

3. It is also a testimony to the world. Does it separate be- 
tween the devout and the ungodly? It also brings them 
strangely near to each other. It \§ public worship ; even those 
who only look and listen are welcome, not intruders upon the 
hallowed scene. Thus the assembled church witnesses for 
God, declaring His truth and glory, and calling men to Him. 
A benevolent deed must not be done for display : " Let not 



20 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." Neither 
should it be studiously done in secret, where none can profit 
by the example : " Even so let your light shine before men, 
that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father 
which is in heaven." So with an act of worship : " My 
mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips: when I remember 
Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night 
watches " ; " For I had gone with the multitude, I went with 
them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, 
with a multitude that kept holyday." When a child, having 
grown up in a home, is able to say, " I have never seen my 
father or my mother on their knees," it is sad for both parent 
and child. Neither would it be well that those who do not 
themselves worship should never hear the sound of prayer and 
praise in the house of the Lord. "And it came to pass, as 
He was praying in a certain place, that when He ceased, one 
of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray " (Luke 
xi. i). Thousands have been won to a prayerful life by the 
unconscious influence of those whom they saw in prayer. 
Especially does that most sacred and significant ordinance, the 
Lord's Supper, have the character of a testimony : " For as 
often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the 
Lord's death till He come" (i Cor. xi. 26). 

II. But there arise many Hindrances to the true worship 
of God in the congregation, and it is to some of these that I 
must now ask attention. 

1. Vanity. The sin of devotional self-applause has not dis- 
appeared with the disuse of phylacteries and the sacred borders 
of the garment. Many a man who would shrink away in pain- 
ful embarrassment from any intrusion upon his private devo- 
tions will cherish a subtle, secret pride in the performance of 
his part in public worship. Is there no temptation to vanity 
in the reader of a ritual, and even in the congregation as they 
make their united responses to the rich and rhythmic formulary, 
" meekly kneeling upon their knees " ? Nor is the case of ex- 



USES AND HINDRANCES 21 

temporaneous prayer essentially different, as every one who has 
been called on to lead in it is sadly aware. We may make 
our " long prayers " in the church to receive glory of men, and 
so may gain the hypocrite's reward — looking unto the Lord, 
with many a side-glance at the admiring faces of our fellow- 
men. 

"And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, 
That summons you to all the pride of prayer." 

2. Formalism. This species of hypocrisy is an imitation of 
the proper signs of devotional life ; and is as distasteful to the 
spiritual mind as prose expressed in meter and rhyme to the 
poetic taste, or as the opening eyes and twitching limbs of a 
galvanized corpse to the natural feelings of all men. It is the 
" holy kiss " of the Corinthian church, in the midst of envying 
and discord ; it is the asking of a blessing at the daily meal, 
followed by gormandizing or gluttony. 

Its theological consummation is the investment of a form 
with some magic power of regeneration or upbuilding. Thus 
has sacramentarianism entered in to corrupt Christian worship 
as taught by Christ and His apostles. Even a Henry P. Lid- 
don could declare his conviction that the apostolic succession 
is necessary not merely to the well-being, but to the very 
existence of the church of Christ ; even a Luther could teach 
that the body and blood of our Lord are literally received by 
the communicants in the sacramental Supper; even the Augs- 
burg Confession could " condemn the Anabaptists, who assert 
that unbaptized infants can possibly be saved " ; even a Rich- 
ard Watson could write it down in his " Institutes of Theology," 
that the baptism of an infant "secures the gift of the Holy 
Spirit in those spiritual influences by which the actual regen- 
eration of those children who die in infancy is effected, and 
which are a seed of life in those who are spared." It is human 
to rest in that which we can see and touch, as though the 
springs of our life were there. Therefore, all through the 
Christian ages God's prophets are sent forth, even as in 



22 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ancient Israel, — the Apostles, the reformers, the revivalists, the 
spiritually-minded pastors, — to hold up the high Christian ideal 
of life and call us back from idolatry to the worship of God. 

No matter what the particular form may be, however simple 
and appropriate, however artificial or puerile, — the solemn- 
voiced Presbyterian prayer, the procession of the Roman 
Catholic Church, the knee-drill of the Salvation Army, — to oc- 
cupy attention with the form rather than with the object of 
worship is externalism, formalism. The pastor who called on 
a young brother for prayer in a revival, and charged him to 
make it " short, sharp, and fiery," was encouraging formalism 
while perhaps intending to secure the exactly opposite result. 
The same objection must be made to many of the well-meant 
directions that are given and reiterated in prayer-meeting as 
to the manner of singing. We are not to change the worship- 
ing assembly into a singing-class, the battle-field into a parade- 
ground. To remind others, directly or indirectly, of the great 
reality of the Divine Presence,— this is to help them in worship. 

3. Mental vacuity or preoccupation. Many of those who 
with bowed heads are showing respect for the minister's prayer 
are really doing nothing else. They hear it, and hear it not. 
Indeed, if he who utters it would always speak what is upper- 
most in his mind, would it not sometimes be a strangely differ- 
ent utterance? Similarly, in the offering of praise, are not the 
lips found moving oftentimes when head and heart have fallen 
asleep? Or on some such background of consciousness as 
this, " In church, singing, customary, good hymn, in company 
with other people," what unfit thoughts and fancies go flitting 
across the mind, and even, lingering unrebuked, take posses- 
sion of it! 

Good is it to worship with our thoughts, to meditate in 
silence upon the name and the ways of our God. The protest 
of George Fox and his followers against externalism and 
worldliness in the church, and their doctrine of the "inner, 
universal, and saving light," though enfeebled by extravagance, 



USES AND HINDRANCES 23 

were timely and fruitful. Meditation and prayer are so much 
alike that the Hebrews had a word which they used for both 
(Gen. xxiv. 63). "While I was musing the fire burned: then 
spake I with my tongue, Lord, make me to know mine end " 
(Ps. xxxix. 3, 4). Fellow-worshipers in the meeting-house 
may be helpful to one another through the unobtrusive sense 
of one another's presence, without a spoken word. 

" And from the silence multiplied 
By these still forms on either side, 
The world that time and sense have known 
Falls off and leaves us God alone." 

Can we not sympathize with the devout Scotchman's mood, 
who, being a little deaf, was requested to come up nearer at the 
celebration of the Lord's Supper, that he might hear, and re- 
plied, " Na, na ; I dinna want to hear "? 

But even silence and darkness are no effectual security 
against preoccupation of mind. Though every tongue be 
hushed and every eye closed, the mind may be overrun with 
images of sense and all manner of vain and irrelevant thoughts ; 
more so, in the case of many minds, than when the sound of 
worship is falling on the ear. Such silence is not divine com- 
munion. 

4. Senstwusfiess. There is an eloquence that startles the 
nerves into delicious tremors, but gives little more than this 
refined sensuous gratification. In like manner public worship 
may so fill the eye and ear with delight as to detain the soul 
in the senses instead of setting it free to draw nigh unto God. 
If there be no special danger to spirituality of worship in the 
accumulation of sensuous attractions, the history of Christian- 
ity and the philosophy of human nature alike have proved un- 
trustworthy witnesses. 

But, on the other hand, ugliness and discord are not means 
of grace. If it is true that behind God's unceasing ministry 
of beauty in earth and sky, in nature and through the hand of 



24 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

art, is the unseen glory, awaiting its day of revelation in " the 
new heavens and the new earth, in which dwelleth righteous- 
ness," then it must be true that a certain excitation of the 
sense of the beautiful may be devotionally helpful. How won- 
derfully kind the Providence that withdraws the veil of light 
evening by evening from the most elevating and sublime of all 
scenery, — before which the Yosemite and the Alps dwindle 
into insignificance, — even to the dwellers in the narrowest alley 
or the most crowded tenement of the city! A young friend of 
mine, a shoemaker, faithful to his daily round of uninspiring 
toil, said, " When my faith gets weak I walk out and look at 
the stars." No wonder such a sight should kindle thought 
into adoration and awe that struggle in vain for adequate 
speech — " O God, I praise Thee ; let me live forever to know 
more, to become more, to do more for Thee." 

In worship the senses should be neither the masters nor the 
dishonored castaways, but the ready servitors of the soul. 
The scene before the eye by its " quiet " colors may subdue 
the spirit into thoughtfulness and trust, or by some unobtrusive 
symbolism may quicken it to lay hold of the invisible. Music 
may tranquilize or soften or inspire. Our Lord would reach 
the soul through the senses when He says, " Go, disciple all 
nations, baptizing them " ; and again when He bids His dis- 
ciples eat and drink the bread and wine of the Supper in re- 
membrance of Him. And yet how far is that perfect teaching 
from authorizing pomp and showiness, elaborateness of cere- 
mony, or any luxurious indulgence of sense in the worship of 
God! 

There is another sort of sensuousness in worship to which 
some of us are inclined. In many a religious meeting the 
effort of the leader, with hymn and prayer and exhortation, 
from beginning to end, seems to be to work up himself and 
the congregation into a state of exhilaration ; not to humble 
the soul in deep contrition before the All-holy One, not to gain 
deliverance from the power of self and have the law of God 



USES AND HINDRANCES 25 

written in the heart, but to be borne aloft on some tide of en- 
joyable feeling. We have it illustrated in the frequent writh- 
ing and screaming, the wild yet superficial waves of emotion, 
able to give no account of itself, in the African meeting-house ; 
nor is it always necessary to go so far in order to find an ex- 
ample. Is it, then, for self-repression and against natural 
animation and excitement in divine worship that I am plead- 
ing? I trust it is for this: "The hour cometh, and now is, 
when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and 
truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His worshipers" 
(John iv. 23). 

5. Disorder. It was with reference to meetings for congre- 
gational worship that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, " Let all 
things be done decently and in order." This implies the giv- 
ing up of individual preference or habit for the good of the 
community. Without this there could be no order, and with- 
out order no common and mutual service. Those who would 
be built as stones into the temple of God must consent to have 
their sharp projections hewn away and their sides polished. 
It is God's law, — each adjusting itself to all, that each may 
serve and be served by all, — in heaven and earth, down to the 
very atoms of the molecule. The Corinthians had been so 
filled with a sense of their individual gifts and experiences that 
the peace and unity of their church were imperiled. Each had 
his " psalm " that he wished to sing, or his " teaching " or " in- 
terpretation " that he was eager to deliver. This was well 
enough ; but one would not wait for another, and many speak- 
ing together made a jargon that was not " unto edifying." In 
the days of the " Old Bay Psalm-book " in the Puritan churches 
of New England, there were some congregations that had no 
leader of the singing: when a psalm was announced each 
sang it to such a tune as seemed right in his own eyes. But 
Paul declared to the church of Corinth his determination to 
sing and pray not only " with the spirit," — i.e., from his inmost 
spiritual experience and impulse,— but "with the understand- 



26 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ing also,"— under the direction of reason and judgment, which 
would remind him that others were present and would be 
influenced for good or evil by what he did. 

Even the law of the land recognizes the necessity of order 
in congregational worship, and will lay its hand upon the dis- 
turber of a religious meeting. But for protection against the 
innumerable minor violations of good order we are dependent 
on each other's common sense and Christian feeling. 

The minister — must it be confessed? — is not infrequently 
the chief offender. When, for example, it is his habit : 

To talk and laugh in the pulpit with some brother minister, 
though ready, perhaps, to rebuke with uncalled-for severity a 
similar offense in the congregation ; 

To gaze vacantly or curiously about instead of being occu- 
pied cheerfully, gravely, and intently with the duty of the hour ; 

To smooth his hair, to " brush it unnaturally back from his 
forehead, that its roughness may look terrible," to adjust his 
clothing, or in any way to put the finishing touch on his toilet 
before the congregation ; 

While some one else is leading in prayer, to fumble the leaves 
of the hymn-book in search of the next hymn ; 

To rise restlessly to find his Scripture lesson before the sing- 
ing is done ; 

To lounge upon the pulpit sofa ; 

To sit with his legs crossed in the form of a triangle (an in- 
tolerably unseemly habit) ; 

To blow his nose as if it were a trumpet ; 

To use his handkerchief needlessly ; 

When he has occasion to enter or leave the chancel, to save 
himself a few steps by stepping over the railing ; 

To ascend from the chancel to the pulpit platform at one 
stride, ignoring the steps ; 

To throw his overcoat over the chancel-rail and put his hat 
on one of the posts ; 

To reprove disorder so as to create greater disorder ; 



USES AND HINDRANCES 27 

To remember some announcement a little late, and give it 
after the people have bowed their heads for the benediction ; 

To show a spirit of levity, of absent-mindedness, of slouchi- 
ness, of rudeness, in any of the innumerable ways in which it 
is inevitably betrayed. 

What may be said of responses in prayer? In the Jewish 
synagogue the " Amen " was spoken by the people in concert 
(Neh. viii. 6). From the synagogue the custom passed over 
to the early Christian churches (i Cor. xiv. 16). Justin 
Martyr, describing congregational worship in the second cen- 
tury, says : " Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we 
before said, when our prayer is ended bread and wine are 
brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and 
thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, 
saying, 'Amen.'" The same ancient custom is practised in 
liturgic worship at the present day. In non-liturgic churches, 
on the other hand, not a single response is likely to be heard 
from first to last. But even though the liturgy be laid aside, 
why not retain the " Amen " as a free response to prayer? 
Why is it that all will unite without hesitation in a concert 
of responses, whereas only one here or there, or none at all, 
feels it a duty or a joy to make individual and voluntary re- 
sponses ? By all means let individual responses be encouraged, 
not noisy or mechanical, but real and fervent, from every 
worshiper. 

Order is a much larger and more vital word than uniformity. 
What if the " order of exercises " should not be exactly the 
same on every similar occasion? This will never destroy the 
church, unless Romanism should prove to have a truer instinct 
in such a matter than New Testament Christianity. Every 
rubric is not to be regarded as a rule of iron. 

But no departure from the established order must be radical 
or extreme, and even a slight variation should be justifiable by 
some sufficient reason. There is room for liberty within the 
spirit of the law, but not for eccentricity or caprice. 



-Z. 



LECTURE II 

FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE SCRIPTURE READING 

TO give up forms would be to sever our relation to the 
world of sense. And in religion as little as elsewhere can 
we escape from this divinely appointed condition of our pres- 
ent life. The kingdom of God takes outward form, and we 
have the church. The Word of God in the heart of prophet 
and apostle takes outward form, and the result is the Scriptures. 
The Word of God in the heart of the Christian preacher of the 
present day takes outward form, and we hear the preaching of 
the Gospel in the power of the Spirit. Similarly have arisen 
the observances of congregational worship. These, as we have 
already noted, are the necessary outward expression of the de- 
votional life. Even the sitting in silence at an appointed hour 
in the meeting-house, — what is it but an observance, a form? 
And for regular church-going we may claim the authority of 
the perfect Example : " He came to Nazareth, where He had 
been brought up : and, as His custom was, He went into the 
synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read " 
(Luke iv. 16). Even to the synagogue of His time, with its 
mechanical prayers and fanciful, pettifogging expositions of 
Scripture, Jesus would go on the Sabbath day. 

But form can justify its existence only as necessary to the 
expression and communication of power. I see a summer leaf 
on the oak-tree in my yard— small, fragile, sensitive to every 
pulsation of air. Nevertheless, it is exerting a force — so 



FORMS OF WORSHIP-THE SCRIPTURE READING 29 

those who know tell us — comparable to that of the steam- 
power that grinds our wheat and propels our railway-trains. 
But not the " it " that I have just described as so small and 
frail. This is but the sensible embodiment ; the life-power is 
the real leaf. 

Of no truth of religion may we be more certain than that the 
worship of God is " in spirit." But the angels themselves are 
not silent and motionless in worship. The proper antithesis of 
formality is not formlessness, but spirituality. A Coleridge may 
stand " before sunrise in the vale of Chamouni," and be so lost 
to the outer world as no longer to see ' f the dread and silent 
mount "before him— "entranced in prayer." But the next 
thing will be the utterance of the inner melody : 

" Awake, 
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! 
Green hills and icy cliffs, all join my hymn." 

The persistent effort to worship God without a form would 
end in the negation of intelligence and will, — in the extremest 
mysticism. 

The reason, why some of us have so poor a gift in prayer is 
that we do not talk much to God in private. And the reason 
why our private devotions need so little speech is not always 
that we " sit dumb because we know a speechless good," and 
feeling the inadequacy of any human language, just sum up all 
in one great word, — " O Lord, Thou knowest," " Thy will be 
done." Sometimes it is because we have so little to say. 

Will the life of the spirit express itself naturally in its own 
appropriate forms of congregational worship? Dr. Behrends, 
in his " Philosophy of Preaching," has said so : " It is in the 
conduct of worship as with godliness ; you can have the form 
without the power, but you cannot have the power without the 
appropriate form, and where the power is perfect the form will 
be perfect." No doubt this is true and full of significance ; 
but it is also true that there is no one most perfect and beau- 



30 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

tiful form of congregational worship. Even though the 
"power" should be exactly the same in two congregations, it 
by no means follows that the two forms would be indistinguish- 
able. It could not be so unless the congregations were exactly 
alike in taste, temperament, mental culture, all endowments 
and education. And who does not know the impossibility of 
finding even two individuals of the billion upon earth of whom 
this is true? The spirit of worship, so far from keeping clear 
of these differences, expresses itself through them and is 
tinctured and molded by them. Life "builds in lines of 
beauty " indeed, but these are at the same time lines of infinite 
variety. The shrub is not the tree, nor are the maple and the 
willow the same. Each Christian church must adopt some 
forms of worship ; each should adopt such as are practically 
best, most perfectly adapted to express the spiritual aspirations 
of the generality of worshipers. 

It can never be an easy matter for any widely extended 
church to construct such a form and order of worship for its 
congregations. But thus much may be accepted as proved : 
The two extremes of Quakerism and ritualism do not best 
express the needs of Christian souls in their endeavor to wor- 
ship God together. And of this proposition, too, we need 
have no doubt: The forms of worship observed by the dis- 
ciples of Jesus in apostolic times may be taken as a model for 
all times ; not to be slavishly copied, for they are not without 
local coloring (neither is the decalogue or the Sermon on the 
Mount), but truly a part of that Christian simplicity from 
which the church cannot be removed without the loss of truth 
and power. 

What, then, were the characteristics of congregational wor- 
ship in the New Testament churches? It was patterned after 
the synagogue, not after the temple— no altar, no priest. It 
was shared in by all, not performed by one in behalf of all. 
It was orderly, not unregulated. It was free, not restricted to 
prescribed forms. It consisted of singing, prayers, the read- 



FORMS OF WORSHIP-THE SCRIPTURE READING 31 

ing of the Scriptures, the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and 
the word of praise or of exhortation from any member of the 
worshiping assembly who might be moved by the Holy Spirit 
to speak. 

The advantages of written formularies of devotion are prac- 
tically acknowledged by everybody. The doxology and the 
apostolic benediction, which are heard in all Christian churches 
every Sunday, are liturgical forms. In the case of hymns, in- 
deed, it is a matter not simply of expediency, but of necessity : 
we must either have a metrical liturgy or no congregational 
singing. Nor does any pious parent hesitate to teach his child 
some form of prayer. Indeed, the question would seem to 
have been settled forever to the followers of Christ by His own 
word of at least permissive authority (Matt. vi. 9-15; Luke 
xi. 1-13). The priceless prayer that Jesus has taught us to say 
is adapted to all His disciples in every stage of their spiritual 
experience. With all increase of knowledge and holiness it 
becomes more significant, more precious. 

Generally speaking, however, the written prayer is for the 
beginning of Christian life rather than for its later stages ; for 
the child rather than the man, the young convert rather than 
the mature Christian, the church in the first principles of re- 
ligion rather than the church baptized with the Holy Spirit and 
enriched with all knowledge and with all utterance. And to 
exclude free prayer from the congregation cannot fail to pre- 
vent or arrest the development of its devotional life. Let all 
the ignorance, unspirituality, and general incompetence of the 
offerers of extemporary prayer be sadly and frankly admitted : 
the right inference is not that all prayer except what has been 
written down and prescribed should be prohibited. Such a 
conclusion belongs not to the dispensation of the Spirit. 

" The conclusion reached," says Dr. S. M. Hopkins, in the 
" Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia," " by eminent members of both 
liturgical and non-liturgical churches is that a system that 
should unite the propriety and dignity of venerable forms with 



32 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the flexibility and adaptation to occasions of free prayer would 
be superior to any existing method." 

The rituals in use in various churches at the present day have 
an interesting history. Some parts of them are taken from the 
Scriptures ; the origin of other parts is lost in the obscurity of 
the early Christian centuries. Written liturgies first appear in 
the fourth century (in the time of Basil the Great, a.d. 329- 
379). But in our present rituals are fragments of hymns and 
prayers that seem to have arisen as oral forms long before 
that time. 

The liturgy of the Church of England during the Roman 
Catholic period was in the Latin language, and consisted of 
a collection of prayers derived partly from the primitive 
churches and partly from the Church of Rome. There was 
no one liturgy, however, in universal use in England. 

The renunciation of Roman supremacy by King Henry 
VIII. made an opportunity for the principles of the Reforma- 
tion, and soon thereafter steps began to be taken toward a re- 
vision and amendment of the liturgy in accordance with these 
purer doctrines of Christianity. In pursuance of this object 
the first Book of Common Prayer was published in 1548, the 
second year of the reign of Edward VI. Its chief basis was a 
service-book compiled by a bishop of Salisbury in the eleventh 
century, which was called the " Sarum Use " (i.e., the liturgy 
in use in Salisbury). It was the work of thirteen learned 
divines, the martyrs Cranmer and Ridley being of the number. 
There were four subsequent revisions. The last was made in 
the reign of Charles II., in the year 1662, since which time 
there has been no material alteration in the English Prayer- 
book. 

When the Methodist Episcopal Church in this country was 
organized, in 1784, Wesley prepared a prayer-book for its use, 
— "The Sunday Service of the Methodists in America." It 
was taken from the English Book of Common Prayer as an 
abridgement with alterations, somewhat as that book was ex- 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE SCRIPTURE READING 33 

tracted and compiled from preexisting liturgies. But the " Sun- 
day Service " met with little favor, and two years later its 
publication was discontinued. Soon afterward, however, cer- 
tain parts of it — such as the Order for the Administration of 
the Lord's Supper, the Order for Baptism, and the Order for 
the Burial of the Dead — were incorporated into the Discipline 
of the church, and these have continued in constant use, with 
slight modifications, to the present time. 

The alterations made by Wesley in the English ritual con- 
sisted, to a large extent, like those made under the authority 
of the English church, in the elimination of Romish elements. 
Some of these changes were the following : in the Order for 
the Administration of the Lord's Supper, the use of the term 
elder for priest, the omission from the general confession 
of the words, "The burden of them [our sins] is intoler- 
able," the change of the absolution into a prayer, the omission 
of certain exhortations and prayers; in the Order for the 
Administration of Baptism to Infants, all those parts relating 
to sponsors, and all those parts in which is implied the dogma 
of baptismal regeneration. 

Any prescribed form may be so used as to make it a mock- 
ery of devotion. The petitions of the Lord's Prayer are often 
repeated by the minister so rapidly as to render it impossible 
to take in their meaning. Sometimes they are spoken in a 
manner that would seem to a thoughtful and reverent worshiper 
as hardly less than sacrilege. But it need not be. We can 
readily imagine a Pharisee glibly repeating a form of words, — 
of very sound words, it may be, — and priding himself in it, 
without any genuine realization of their meaning. We cannot 
think of a Christian apostle becoming addicted to such a habit. 
Much more is it impossible to think of our Lord as using any 
word, either His own or that of some ancient prophet, that He 
did not really know and mean. As we are striving to become 
like Him, so must we be self-recollected and sincere. 

Now the subject before us in this and the two following lee- 



34 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

tures will be the conduct of congregational worship with re- 
spect to its forms. 

First I would ask your attention to the Scripture Reading. 

It is a very ancient observance. Ezra the scribe, with his 
co-laborers, upon "a pulpit of wood," before his vast open-air 
audience, " read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, 
and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the read- 
ing," translating and paraphrasing the pure Hebrew into the 
vernacular of the people (Neh. viii. 8). Dean Stanley has re- 
marked : " The Bible and the reading of the Bible as an instrument 
of instruction may be said to have been begun on the sunrise of 
that day when Ezra unrolled the parchment scroll of the law. 
It was a new thought that the divine will could be communi- 
cated by a dead literature as well as by a living voice." But 
even in an earlier age, four hundred years before, there would 
seem to have been a Bible reading not essentially different from 
this, and on an equally extensive scale. King Jehoshaphat, 
whose " heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord," sent out 
his princes with priests and Levites to teach the people : " And 
they taught in Judah, having the book of the law of the Lord 
with them ; and they went about throughout all the cities of 
Judah, and taught among the people " (2 Chron. xvii. 9). In 
the Book of Deuteronomy, indeed, the command was given to 
read the law publicly every seven years at the Feast of Tab- 
ernacles (Deut. xxxi. 10-13). Later, in the synagogue, the 
whole of the Pentateuch and large portions of the prophets 
were read, in the course of each year, to the congregations of 
Israel. In the New Testament the apostle Paul bids Timothy 
" give heed to reading " (this same public reading of the Scrip- 
tures) as well as to "exhortation" and to "teaching" (1 Tim. 
iv. 13), and directs that the Epistle to the Colossians, after it 
has been read among them, "be read also in the church of 
the Laodiceans," and that they "also read the epistle from 
Laodicea " (Col. iv. 16). The Book of Revelation pronounces 
a blessing on the public reading and hearing of its contents 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE SCRIPTURE READING 35 

(ch. i. 3). From Justin Martyr, who died about the year 
167, we learn that in his day the Gospels — "Memoirs of the 
Apostles," he calls them— and the Scriptures of the prophets 
were regularly read in the churches. Indeed, how could it 
have been otherwise than that the scribe both in Israel and in 
the Christian church should read the Word of God to the as- 
sembled people? 

Ours is the English Bible. It has come down to us from 
five hundred years ago, through the hands not only of scholar- 
ship and genius, but of heroic self-denial and Christian martyr- 
dom. We have had forefathers who dared the wrath of 
churchmen and of kings, and counted not their lives dear 
unto themselves, in the endeavor to give God's holy Word to 
the people in their own tongue. Wycliffe, who first translated 
the whole Bible into English, was saved by a timely illness and 
death from answering at Rome for this and other evangelical 
enterprises. Tyndale went into exile to do his work of trans- 
lation, but there he was finally strangled to death and his body 
burned at the stake. Miles Coverdale's Bible was burned 
under royal authority ; he himself was imprisoned, narrowly 
escaped martyrdom, fled from his native land. For two hun- 
dred and fifty years the Authorized Version, published under 
the authority of King James I., wrought a work in the thought, 
the speech, and the religious life of English-speaking people 
that has been without a parallel in any nation. But we have 
now something better. Since the year 161 1 many English 
words have either become obsolete or changed their meaning 
Others are obsolescent, and hence unfamiliar to the ordinary 
reader. Besides, biblical scholarship has greatly improved, 
both in its materials and its processes. So the Revisers' Ver- 
sion has been given us. It sets forth in simple and familiar 
language, more truly than any of its predecessors, the meaning 
of the original Scriptures. Let us appreciate the singularly 
excellent form in which the Word of God appears in our pul- 
pits and may be read to our people,— the English Bible. 



36 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

But is not this reading of the Scriptures instruction, and 
therefore to be classed with preaching rather than with wor- 
ship? Instruction, and more : it is coming together gratefully 
and reverently before God, to receive His Word, and with it 
to receive into our hearts the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit of 
God. Luther defined worship not inaptly as consisting of two 
elements, a passive and an active, the passive element being 
" to accept God's Word, or through the Word to be instructed." 

Besides, a large part of Scripture has taken a devotional 
form. It consists of prayer or praise or devout meditation. 
Are not these intended to nourish and express our own devo- 
tional feeling? " Have mercy upon me, O God, according to 
Thy loving-kindness : according to the multitude of Thy tender 
mercies blot out my transgressions ; " " Blessed be the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great 
mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, 
and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for 
you ;" — are such words publicly read merely that the congrega- 
tion may know them, and not also that they may appropriate 
them and therein express their own penitence and hope and 
adoring gratitude? 

The reading of the Scriptures in the congregation, then, is 
both instruction and devotion, and it is not inappropriate to 
rise from our knees and say, " Let us continue the worship of 
God by reading," etc. So we are not surprised to learn that 
at one time in the primitive church it was a common usage for 
the people to stand, as an act of reverence, during this part of 
the services. Indeed, a precedent much more primitive might 
have been quoted by the Christians for this reverent attitude 
(Neh. viii. 5). 

It must be acknowledged, however, that the Scripture read- 
ing in our churches is often not only undevotional, but alto- 
gether unedifying. The people submit to it as a seemly 
ceremony ; they do not listen, save with the outward ear. Is 



FORMS OF WORSHIP- THE SCRIPTURE READING 37 

it because of intellectual heaviness or moral depravity on their 
part ? It is largely because, in any true sense, the Scripture is 
not read to them. It would be easy to mention the names of 
preachers, some famous and others unknown, whose reading 
of the Scripture is listened to. Take a single example, the 
testimony of a grateful hearer : " One of the most precious 
heirlooms in the memory of the writer is the hushed and rapt 
interest with which, when a lad, he listened to the reading and 
addresses, given sometimes in a voice scarcely above a whisper, 
of the late Bishop Mcllvaine of Ohio. His reading was in- 
terpretation in the highest degree. Inflection, emphasis, and 
chastened tone ' rightly divided the word of truth,' illumined 
obscure passages, and brought to light the hidden riches of 
secret places." 

But in the case of many the selected lesson is not truly min- 
istered to the congregation. The reading is probably marked 
by nothing more conspicuously than by an unmeaning same- 
ness. It is all " intoned," or all reeled off in a quick, busi- 
nesslike style, or all recited in a melancholy monotone. The 
selection from the Old Testament and that from the New; 
psalm, narrative, precept, doctrinal exposition ; the prophet 
Isaiah and the apostle James ; the story of Naaman the leper 
and the first chapter of John ; the dirge and the halleluiah of 
a prophecy, the penitential sorrow and the exultant joy of a 
psalm, — all are rendered in the same tone, in the same intel- 
lectually lazy manner. Is this reverent or profane? It is but 
a lip-service, a dead work, from which the doer ought to turn 
away with shame and repentance. 

What is it to read aloud? Not the same thing as to talk, 
either in conversation or publicly ; for talking is the free utter- 
ance of one's own personal sentiments. Not the same thing 
as dramatic acting ; for to act is to identify one's self with the 
personality of another and utter his sentiments as if they were 
one's own. Reading to people is taking up the sentiments that 
some person has felt and recorded at some past time and de- 



38 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Hvering them for what they are. We are not to read, then, as 
we talk, nor as an actor would play his part. Either of these 
two attitudes would be false in the reader. He must adjust 
himself to the true situation, as at once a learner and a teacher, 
a listener and a speaker. To convey the words of another to 
an audience, together with his own sympathetic realization of 
their contents, this is his humble and extremely difficult office. 
The tone of voice will be more subdued than in the other two 
modes of elocution, but not necessarily less vital and intense. 

Nowhere on the face of the earth ought this office to be so 
effectively fulfilled as in the pulpit. But there is even a half- 
concealed prejudice in some minds against any well-defined 
endeavor to read the Scriptures well. The unspoken feeling 
is probably about this : " It is God's Word ; let it do its own 
work ; it needs no help from me." But why, then, read it at 
all? No; let us help it. Let us put ourselves between the 
written Word and our fellow-men as a medium of communi- 
cation, elected of God, through which divine truth and power 
may pass. We must read with some tone, some emphasis, 
some expression. Supposing these to be different from what 
the subject requires, they have the effect of obscuration or mis- 
interpretation. Four persons undertake to read to a group 
of listeners some piece of composition. The first renders it in 
a dull, mechanical monotone ; the second with conscious effort 
and straining after " effect " ; the third with misplaced em- 
phasis, pauses, and inflections ; the fourth with genuine expres- 
siveness of manner. Which of the four has really read the 
piece? Reading is vocal interpretation. And what book, of 
all in the world, should be well interpreted, if not the Book of 
them all? 

"It is God's Word." What is? The black marks made 
by the printer upon the page? The English sounds of which 
these letters are the signs? The punctuation and grammatical 
constructions? Not these; but the meaning of the Book, its 
truths, its teachings, the mind of the Spirit in the Scriptures. 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE SCRIPTURE READING 39 

Good reading is that which in some considerable measure 
conveys this meaning to the hearer ; nothing more, nothing 
other. 

So misleading and perversive of the truth is a wrong em- 
phasis — to consider this particular element of speech for a 
moment— that logicians have included in their enumeration of 
false arguments the fallacy of accent. Who can maintain that 
he has never employed it? In reporting the language of an- 
other many persons are conscientious enough not to change 
the words, who nevertheless take the liberty of making very 
sensible alterations in the emphasis, the inflections, the tone. 
But are not these also virtual words, signs of ideas, and often 
the most significant of all such signs ? They are the spirit of 
the words. May we violate the spirit, provided no violence 
be done to the form? It is the subtler falsehood of the two. 
To take just one example out of an innumerable multitude : 
" He did it very well " means that it was done extremely well ; 
while " He did it very well" suggests a doubt that it was done 
even moderately well. Does it make no difference, then, in 
orally reporting such an assertion, which of the two adverbs 
shall be emphasized? 

Now if we turn to the Bible — or, indeed, to any other book 
— we can see on every page how vocal misinterpretation may 
arise. Some Sundays ago I heard a minister read in his Scrip- 
ture lesson, " For the time will come when they will not en- 
dure sound doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall they heap 
to themselves teachers having itching ears " (2 Tim. iv. 3), giv- 
ing the upward inflection to the word teachers, and making no 
pause before the next word ; thus implying that the itching ears 
belonged to the false teachers, and not to the people that set 
them up and listened to them. If this be not misinterpreta- 
tion, by what name shall we call it? On the other hand, it is 
not unusual to hear the downward inflection given to words in 
which the suspended sense requires the upward, e.g.: "And 
He opened His mouth and taught them, saying K " etc., instead 



40 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

of, " And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying'," 
etc. I have heard of a preacher who quoted John iv. 2 as 
proving that the Twelve were baptized, and were indeed the 
only persons baptized, by Christ Himself : " Jesus Himself 
baptized not but his disciples." This expositor, it is true, was 
an uneducated negro, but he is not without numerous fellows, 
in the matter of expository reading, among those who enjoy 
higher gifts and opportunities. 

Surely it is more than a mere question of taste whether we 
shall so read the Scriptures to men or not. It is a question of 
duty, of conscience, of truth. 

Nor, as already intimated, is the mere avoidance of such 
misreading sufficient. Obviously not. A musician may render 
his piece correctly and yet very poorly ; the music within the 
music may not be heard at all. So with reading. Correct- 
ness is negative; there must be the positive excellence and 
power that may be described, in a single word, as expression. 

The qualifications are simple and evident, but not such as 
may be picked up in a day. They are partly physical. The 
musician should have a good instrument, responsive to his 
fingers or his breath, else the music in his soul will not find 
adequate outflow. So with reading. The vocal chords, with 
the resonant cavities and the differentiating organs, — the 
whole apparatus of speech, — must be such as can respond 
with strong, sweet, and flexible voice to the touch of the soul. 
But the musician is more than the instrument, and so like- 
wise is the soul more than the vocal organs. The sources of 
power in good reading are psychical, not physical. Are the 
words of Scripture dead on your lips? Inevitably so if they 
be dead on your soul. Are they present and living words to 
you? They will not be likely to die on your lips. 

Of these sources of power the first is knowledge. Could you 
read the lesson well in Hebrew or Greek, if your acquaintance 
with the language embraced no more than the pronunciation 
of the words? Neither can you read it well in English further 



FORMS OF WORSHIP—THE SCRIPTURE READING 41 

than your knowledge of it extends. " Understandest thou 
what thou readest?" is a doubly appropriate question to one 
who reads to others. He need not expect them to listen and 
understand unless he himself be intelligently listening to 
the author. 

If we suppose, e.g., that our Lord, in His conversation with 
the woman at the well (John iv. 9, 10), is drawing a contrast 
between the water which He could have given her and that 
which He asked of her,— the one being living water and the 
other not,— we shall be likely to emphasize the word living, 
and thus misinterpret the passage and mislead the hearer. 
The true meaning will suggest the true reading : " Thou would- 
est have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living 
water." Likewise the words in James iii. 2, " In many things 
we offend all " (A. V.), will certainly not be read correctly (" In 
many things we offend" — alP ") if they be understood as mean- 
ing that in many things we offend everybody. 

Or take one of the divine names as an example. The 
apostle Paul in two passages, and Luke in one, use the 
Aramaic word Abba for Father, and add the Greek translation, 
— as if they had said, "Abba, which is, being interpreted, 
Father." Our translators have transliterated the first word 
and translated the other, so that we have in our English Bible 
"Abba, Father." But from inattention to their meaning the 
words are constantly used as if they constituted one twofold 
name, as in the familiar line of Dr. Watts : 

" And Father, Abba Father, cry." 

And accordingly they are constantly misread, the Aramaic 
word receiving the upward inflection, with no pause fol- 
lowing, instead of the downward inflection followed by a 
moment's pause, and then the English word in a lower tone 
of voice. 

Now are there any errors into which you personally, through 
misapprehending the exact meaning of what you read from the 



42 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Scriptures to the congregation, are liable to fall? Very many ; 
and I greatly wish that you may take the matter to heart, and 
find them out for yourselves. 

Another qualification is imaginative realization. The distant 
scene or event, with the thrilling experiences that accompanied 
it, must be imaginatively reproduced, and thus become lifelike 
and real to the reader, if he would have the inimitable tone of 
reality and life in his reading. 

Still another qualification is sympathy. I have had a 
" muscle reader " take my hand in one of his, go blindfold 
to any place or person in the room, and lay his other hand on 
any object, according to my wish. The sense of touch, with 
no assistance from any other, without a spoken word, was 
enough. Here was almost preternatural physical sensibility. 
May we feel an analogous moral and emotional sympathy 
with the sacred writer whose words are entering our minds from 
the printed page? Something of it we must have, or else not 
truly receive his words and communicate them to others. It 
must not be as if one were telling us some strange thing outside 
the range of our personal experience and susceptibility. Let 
the deep and varied human feeling — the reverence, the won- 
der, the penitence, the consolation, the hope and fear, the holy 
love to God, the zeal for the salvation of men — that vibrates 
in these inspired and prophetic pages, awaken some accordant 
emotion in our own hearts. To read the seventh or the eighth 
chapter of Romans, for example, unsympathetically is surely 
not to read it. 

Then, as regards the preacher's attitude toward the audience, 
the requisite qualities are sympathy and determination. 

There is a marked difference between reading before people 
and reading to them. There must be a distinct sensitiveness 
to their presence. The reader must stand in some relation of 
congeniality with his hearers, responding to their touch as he 
expects them to respond to his. And at the same time the 
earnest and successful reader exerts his will power upon them. 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE SCRIPTURE READING 43 

Through sympathy and obedience he rules them. Becoming 
their servant, he becomes their master. Not rudely nor in any 
spirit of self-assertion ; gently and wisely ; but steadily deter- 
mining that they shall hear, that they shall be interested ; win- 
ning his way, willing his words into their minds. 

Will not all this require careful premeditation and interested 
attention to the Scripture lesson? Undoubtedly. And are 
not these the right habits to form? Can we be faithful to our 
office as Bible readers in the congregation without them? Is 
it only the sermon that is to be studied and made a real min- 
istration, the rest of the service being simply its customary 
accompaniment? 

Nor is this all. The minister thus interested in the Scripture 
lesson, and intent upon communicating it to others, will become 
a commentator. He will help the expository reading with ex- 
pository remarks,— a pertinent word of explanation, of illustra- 
tion, of application here and there. The English and the 
Scotch preachers give more attention than those of our own 
country to this happy art of exposition. Take the Rev. John 
McNeill of Glasgow as an example. During his recent visit 
to this country it was said, " He reads the Scriptures with 
great effect, interspersing pithy and pointed comments as he 
proceeds." Spurgeon's hearers valued his comments on the 
lesson hardly less than the preaching. And the secret of the 
extraordinary interest with which these comments were received 
is not far to seek. " As a rule," says the great preacher, " I 
spend much more time over the exposition than over the ser- 
mon." A few of our American preachers likewise— Dr. C. F. 
Deems, for example— are known to have prepared the Scrip- 
ture lessons no less carefully than the sermon. I believe the 
result will in every case justify the practice. 

Such exposition, indeed, is attended with more than one 
advantage. Besides its direct effect in enriching the services 
through the teaching and enforcement of the truth, its tendency 
is to prevent formalism and a stilted or declamatory style of 



44 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

pulpit speech. It is an excellent preparative for the delivery 
of the sermon — the skirmishers' fire before the battle. 

True, if the commenting be done as a mere matter of course, 
it were better omitted. It must come as the fruit of knowledge, 
sympathy, earnestness of purpose. " Pithy and pointed " it 
ought to be, by all means. There is no profit in diluting the 
intense significance of Scripture language with feeble para- 
phrase or random remark. Do not grudge your very best 
ideas, illustrative incidents, bits of experience, for this minis- 
tration. Plenty of others are available for use in the sermon. 
Give of your best; it will come back to you enriched and 
multiplied. 

Might it not be well occasionally to make the sermon shorter 
than usual — say fifteen or twenty minutes in length — and give 
the time thus saved to the Scripture reading? 

Expect your reading, either with or without comment, to do 
good. Mean it. Mingle it with much unspoken prayer. 
Have faith in the Word of God to convict, to comfort, to 
sanctify the souls before you. 

I will only add a few miscellaneous hints. 

i. The lessons, one or both, may be devotional, without 
special reference to the subject of the sermon. So far as they 
are selected for instruction rather than devotion, evidently the 
closer their relation to the sermon the better. 

2. Take the pains necessary to learn the pronunciation of 
Scripture words, especially of the only class that present any 
difficulty — the proper names. If you feel disposed to pass this 
by as a mere surface matter, remember it is what appears on 
the surface that is noticed by everybody. 

3. Words are often miscalled through inattention. I have 
recently heard from the pulpit such renderings of Scripture as 
the following : " When ye come to appear before Me, who 
hath required this at your hand, to treat My courts? " (Isa. 
i. 12); " After the hardness and impenitent heart " (Rom. ii. 5) ; 
" And this commandment have we from Him, That he who 



FORMS OF WORSHIP- THE SCRIPTURE READING 45 

loveth God loveth his brother also " ( i John iv. 2 1 ) ; " This is the 
stone which was set at naught of your builders, which is become 
the head of the corner" (Acts iv. n). They are worthy of 
mention only as fair examples of a numerous class of faults. 

4. Do not allow the division into chapters to prevent unity 
in your Scripture lessons. I once asked a class on examina- 
tion for an outline of the Epistle to the Romans, and nearly 
every one gave it by chapters. There is no such perfection 
in the chapter division of any book of the Bible as this would 
imply. The lesson, if intelligently chosen, will sometimes 
begin in one chapter and end in another. If it should be the 
tenth chapter of John, e.g., the last three verses of the preced- 
ing chapter might well be included, in order to show to what 
persons and in what connection of thought our Lord is here 
setting forth the contrast between the hirelings and the true 
Shepherd. (See also 1 Cor. xii., xiii.) 

Likewise the division into verses tends to obscure the sense. 
It is uniformly appropriate to the subject-matter nowhere 
except in the Psalms and the Proverbs. But an excellent 
corrective, the Revised Version, is in your hands. 

5. Why take up the Bible and lay it on your lap to find the 
lessons ? It is an awkward and useless habit. Leave the 
Book on the pulpit-desk, and be willing to stand during the 
few moments necessary for marking (no t with a batch of leaves 
turned down) the places of the selections you have already 
made and are presently to read. 

6. The lessons will generally be of about the same length ; 
but why have them invariably so? If you have read all that 
is specially suited to your purpose, — though it be only a verse 
or two, — let that suffice. The single paragraph may sometimes, 
from its very brevity, make a stronger impression than the 
whole chapter. In this, as in all things, give free play to the 
life that is in you, and be not a blind and prosy observer of 
any forms, even the most approved. 

Read " The Public Uses of the Bible," by George M. Stone. 



LECTURE III 

FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE HYMN 

IN the schools of the prophets a prominent subject of in- 
struction was music, vocal and instrumental. For the 
prophesying of these ministers of the church seems to have 
been done uniformly with musical accompaniments (i Sam. 
x. 5, 6). Indeed, its own form was often that of a song. They 
" prophesied in giving thanks and praising the Lord." 

Christian preaching goes well with worship ; it is usually 
accompanied with the praise of God in song. Hence it be- 
hooves the Christian preacher, like the ancient "seer in the 
words of God," to prepare himself for the ministration of song 
in the house of the Lord. He ought always to join in the 
singing ; he will find it sometimes a means of usefulness to be 
able to take the lead ; and the general directorship of this, as 
of all other parts of worship, is intrusted to him. It will 
either suffer or be purified and ennobled in his hands. 

Two things chiefly demand his attention : 

I. The Reading of the Hymn. 

Why should this be done at all ? The manner in which it 
is sometimes done would suggest that it is simply intended to 
prevent a dead silence while the congregation are " finding the 
place " in their hymn-books ; or perhaps for the sake of an 
easy mechanical exercise of mind and tongue on the minister's 
part. But if such be the object silence is preferable. 

In fact, the hymn need not always be read. The practice 
46 



FORMS OF WORSHIP-THE HYMN 47 

of reading it originated probably in a lack of hymn-books, 
formerly greater than now, in the congregation. Let the mere 
announcement sometimes suffice. It may save time which 
can be more effectually employed in some other part of the 
service ; e.g., in commenting on the Scripture lesson. 

Or the fact that the hymn is usually read before it is sung 
may be itself a good reason for the occasional omission of the 
reading — to break a custom that may unconsciously become 
as binding as a rubric. But the reading is worship,— an appro- 
priation and vocal expression of the hymn, in which minister 
and people should join, — and passes over insensibly into the 
more emotional worship of song. The hymn is the utterance 
of a gifted Christian soul in the rapture, or trembling penitence, 
or serene and holy trust, of the devotional spirit. The hymn- 
book is more than a newspaper or a business record, and should 
be treated accordingly. " What books are those you used this 
morning in reading the service?" asked Garrick of an English 
clergyman. "Books! Why, the Bible and Prayer-book." 
"Ah!" said the painstaking and famous actor, "I observed 
that you handled them as though they were a ledger and day- 
book." Shall we be of the number of Christian ministers that 
handle their hymnal thus? 

Note the intense interest with which the elocutionist studies 
his piece,— even though it be nothing more than a simple lyric 
poem,— not only for the first reading, but frequently for sub- 
sequent occasions. It must enter into his imagination and 
feeling, so as to become a conscious and vivid reality, — the 
characters, the scenes, the sentiments, — before ever it can find 
interpretation in his voice. No matter how perfect his vocal 
powers, he must have it before he can give it. 

As in the Scripture reading, as in all reading aloud, here is 
the principal thing : sympathetic realization of the sentiment. 
Still it is not always sufficient. We are told by Richard Grant 
White that Tennyson, in reading his own poetry to his friends, 
spoiled it utterly : " Hearers of intelligence and culture, who 



48 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

are accustomed to the best English speech and to the best 
reading, can hardly listen with decorously sober faces as the 
laureate reads his own verses. His accent is so forced, his 
inflections are so grotesque, and even his pronunciation be- 
comes so strange, that to most of his hearers (of whom there 
have not been many) all the charm of his poetry disappears." 
A similar report has come down to us concerning the poet 
Thomson's rendering of the " Seasons." The failure in these 
cases could hardly have been for lack of a correct conception 
or a present realization of the sentiment. 

There may be genuine feeling which, through certain wrong 
ideas or bad speaking habits, is sadly marred in utterance. 
And this seems to be peculiarly true of the rendering of lyrical 
poetry. To render it in speech is harder than in song, be- 
cause it was made for the latter rather than for the former. 

The rhythmic pauses — cesural and final— must always be ob- 
served. Nor must the pauses required by the sense or gram- 
mar be neglected, else the meaning will be lost. The cesura 
need never be permitted to interfere with the sense of the 
verse. Let it fall where the meaning does not forbid ; e.g. : 

" Thy praise shall sound | from shore to shore, 
Till moons shall wax and wane | no more." 

In the latter of these two lines, if the cesural pause were given 
after the word wax and the grammatical pause omitted 
after the word wane, the meaning would become ridiculous. 
But the final pause must be observed for the sake of the 
rhythm, even though the sense should forbid. In this case, 
however, a compromise is called for. Let there be a slight 
pause, the sense yielding a little and the rhythm a little. The 
following couplet may serve for illustration : 

" And if my sufferings may augment 
Thy praise, behold me well content." 

But more specifically. Your feeling as you read the hymn 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE HYMN 49 

may be that of solemnity, while your tone has somehow be- 
come doleful; your feeling may be that of thoughtfulness, 
your tone monotonous, recitative; your feeling that of love and 
joy, your tone loud and harsh; your feeling that of reverence, 
your tone indolent and inaudible. 

Can you bear to be told of such faults? Let not the miser- 
able spirit of self-worship blunt the edge of just and kindly 
criticism. Remember, it is sheer ignorance, or, what is worse, 
vanity, to imagine that we can read a chapter of the Bible or 
a hymn of the hymn-book as it should be done, without study 
and practice. In one way or another we must learn to do it. 
On no other condition may we hope to attain that unconscious 
power which is " the lovely result of forgotten toil." It will 
not come of itself. 

II. The Singing. 

Here we shall content ourselves with two inquiries : 

i. Who shall sing? Not some, but all worshipers, even 
such as have no " gift " of song. Whether Lowell Mason was 
right or wrong in his opinion that any one who can speak can 
sing if he will, there can be no doubt that any one who can 
speak can take part, if he will, with both heart and voice, and 
without producing discord, in congregational singing. Good 
counsel is that of the devout Thomas a Kempis : " If you 
cannot sing so sweetly as the lark or the nightingale, then sing 
as the raven, or as the frog in the pool, who sing as God gave 
them ; only do not raise your voice too greatly." 

One danger attendant upon non-liturgic worship is that the 
congregation, having so little appointed them to do, may de- 
generate into mere listeners and lookers-on. It is desirable to 
have them share as largely as possible with the officiating 
minister in the outward expression of worship. For one thing, 
therefore, let them all unite in the singing. 

The Protestant Reformation found no congregational sing- 
ing in the church. The hymns were in the Latin tongue and 
were rendered by official chanters and choristers alone. For 



50 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

hundreds of years no voice save that of the priest and the choir 
had been lifted up in the praise of God in the congregation. 
All this was changed. Seven years after the nailing of the 
Ninety-five Theses on the church door of Wittenberg, Luther 
began to publish his German hymns. They were rapidly multi- 
plied from his own pen and others. The hymn-book was in the 
congregation. So the people found a voice in which the long- 
repressed praises of the Saviour might be uttered without in- 
terdict or rebuke. One of the great reformer's opponents 
said that the hymns of Luther had slain more souls than his 
writings and declamations. Since then the tide of holy song 
has ebbed and flowed with the rising or declining life and joy 
of the church. 

But the choir is also in our churches. What may we be- 
lieve to be the mind of Christ concerning it ? The office of 
the choir is to lead and not to displace congregational singing. 
Here is our ideal form of congregational worship (Paul prayed 
that it might be realized by the Christians in Rome) : " That 
with one accord ye may with one mouth glorify the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ " (Rom. xv. 6). It is also 
true that the almost universal tendency of the church choir is 
to sing professionally rather than devotionally, — to separate 
itself from the people, as a candidate for their admiration, 
instead of maintaining the closest communion with them as 
fellow-worshipers. Undoubtedly choir-singing, in its effect 
upon those who really desire to worship God in the service of 
song, is sometimes nothing else than sorrow of heart ; it is so 
evidently a. performance. 

" When I survey the -wondrous cross 
On which the Prince of glory died, 
My richest gain I count but loss, 
And pour contempt on all my pride. 

O wondrous cross where Jesus died, 
And for my sins was crucified! 
My longing eyes I turn to Thee, 
Thou blessed Lamb of Calvary!"— 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE HYMN 51 

To hear such words sung as a matter of business, or flippantly, 
or for personal and musical display, apparently without one 
thrill of devotional fervor, without one tender touch of truth 
and reality — and our missionaries afar among the temples of 
idolatry! 

The fault is not that it is art. The simplest melody ever 
written or sung is that. Art is natural. But superficiality is 
only skimming the surface of nature, and affectation is going 
directly against it. 

Still we are not to speak of sitting silent and listening to a 
soloist or a choir as worshiping by proxy. For why not make 
a like assertion concerning leadership in prayer? Who would 
assert, for example, that reading from the book or repeating 
from memory the general confession in the office for the 
Lord's Supper may be true prayer, whereas simply listening to 
the words of the leader, and responding audibly or inaudibly, 
is not worship at all ? The difference commonly felt to exist 
between prayer and sacred song in this respect is probably due 
to the fact that vocal music, unlike public prayer, is an art, 
everywhere cultivated as such, and usually practised as the 
excitant of a semi-sensuous pleasure; and therefore, hearing 
it in church, we are insensibly disposed to regard it as an en- 
tertainment to be enjoyed or criticized, not as an act of de- 
votion in which all are expected devoutly to unite. But for 
this fact it would seem only somewhat less incongruous to 
have an ungodly person, a mere performer, lead in our singing 
than to have him lead in our prayers. I say " somewhat less 
incongruous," because the words of the hymn at least are the 
language of a devout soul, while, in the case of an extemporary 
prayer, both words and voice are the speaker's. 

To hear a gifted singer whose heart God has touched and 
set aglow with reverence and love in the hour of worship — it 
is as if some gentle but mighty hand were lifting us heaven- 
ward. " I can bring people near to God when I sing," said 
Jenny Lind, "and when my heart has been right I have tried 



52 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

to put God first." A good test of Christian simplicity in the 
forms of worship is the revival of religion, and in the revival 
the solo has found a place. Is it not in the line of New Tes- 
tament precedents? (i Cor. xiv. 26; Col. iii. 16.) Two names 
will be associated as complementary representatives of Chris- 
tian evangelism for some years to come, — Moody and San key. 

It was a similar test that proved to a noted missionary to 
the New Hebrides, John G. Paton, the utility of instrumental 
music in worship. Speaking of an excited controversy which 
he had heard in a Presbyterian council over the question of 
the organ and the hymn, he says : " A trip to the South Seas, 
and a revelation of how God used the harmonium and the 
hymn as wings on which the gospel was borne into the homes 
and hearts of cannibals, would have opened the eyes of many 
dear fathers and brethren as it had opened mine. No one 
was once more opposed especially to instrumental music in 
the worship of God than I had been ; but the Lord who made 
us, and who knows the nature He has given us, had long ago 
taught me otherwise." 

But solo-singing, like choir-singing, as we often hear it, not 
coming from one who is himself worshiping, is far from being 
helpful to the worshiper. There must be truth and feeling; 
and, I may be permitted to add, distinct enunciation. The 
sentiment of the hymn cannot be interpreted and communi- 
cated unless it be sung not only in the spirit, but also in recog- 
nizable English words. Gounod, the brilliant composer, has 
even taught that pure diction is the first law of song. 

Now is there one in your congregation to whom has been 
intrusted this power of ministration in song? It may be his 
pastor's duty to remind him of what reward he shall have and 
what he shall miss by singing the praises of God, as the Phari- 
sees offered their prayers, that he may have glory of men. But 
let him sing unto the Lord, " and let all the people say, Amen." 

We are not to be satisfied, then, till all who love the Lord 
unite in the hymn of praise. But if " those refuse to sing who 



FORMS OF WORSHIP- THE HYMN 53 

never knew our God," let it be so. Our first duty is to per- 
suade men to draw near in penitence and make acquaintance 
with Him. The worst are more than welcome in the congre- 
gation. How gladly would we pull down our church edifices 
and build greater in order to make them room! By every 
wise and righteous expedient try to interest the whole com- 
munity both in the preaching and in the worship ; but the 
urging of impenitent men to express contrition for sin or 
supreme devotion to Christ in a concert of song, when they 
mean not a word of it all, is not a wise and righteous expedient. 
Many a profane sea-captain has intermitted his oaths and 
curses long enough to read prayers for the benefit of crew and 
passengers on Sunday morning. But none of us would insist 
that such a man should undertake this service for a Christian 
congregation, even if it were afloat upon the sea. Are the 
hymns of the church, then, radically different in significance 
from its prayers ? 

Who shall sing ? The question cannot be considered apart 
from the deeper question, What is it to sing in the worship of 
God ? The right answer to the latter would be at the same 
time an answer to the former question. And this we shall 
find : while it will be the duty and joy of the whole body of 
worshipers to lift up their voices together in praise to God, if 
sometimes one or more devoutly sing while the rest keep silent, 
all may still be worshiping together. 

What if all should seem to have the spirit of worship except 
him whom we expect more than any other to stand consciously 
in the divine presence and to "know how men ought to be- 
have themselves in the house of God"? What if he should 
apparently regard the hymn as of a lower devotional order 
than the Scripture reading or the prayers? What if he should 
even degrade it into a mere convenience or means of enter- 
tainment? " While the collection is being taken the choir will 
please favor us with some of their delightful music " ; " While 
we sing the hymn those who do not desire to remain to 



54 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the communion may retire." Or suppose the preface which 
he naturally employs in announcing the hymn should be 
"Please sing" instead of "Let us sing." For even between 
these two simple formulas there is an important difference, 
the former signifying, " I am here to direct," and the latter, 
" We are all here to worship God together." 

One homely caution he may need to observe: to use the 
voice in singing may weaken it (oftentimes more than one 
would expect) for preaching, and this it will be his duty to 
avoid. 

2. What shall we sing ? We have been called unto liberty 
as to both hymns and tunes. The " Testimony of the United 
Presbyterian Church " seems at this day strangely out of har- 
mony with the fullness and freedom of Christian feeling, in the 
declaration that " it is the will of God that the songs contained 
in the Book of Psalms be sung in His worship, both public 
and private, to the end of the world, and in singing God's 
praise these songs shall be employed to the exclusion of the 
compositions of uninspired men." Even the greatly improved 
metrical version of psalms that still appears in some hymn- 
books is probably, upon the whole, an embarrassment rather 
than an aid to devotion. The criticism of the poet Cowley 
has not yet become inapplicable: "They are so far from 
doing justice to David that methinks they revile him worse 
than Shimei." Let the psalms, when used in worship, be 
rendered as they are : let them be read or sung as anthems. 
Why spoil the meaning and melody of an inspired hymn by 
forcing it into conformity with our modern and occidental 
forms? As if we were thus preserving the original music of 
the Hebrew verse ! Can we suppose this to be a more ac- 
ceptable offering to God than the same " God's holy Word 
in song," gathered from the Psalms and the Gospel, known in 
the deepest experiences of the Christian poet, and uttered in 
such language as his own heart and the Spirit of truth have 
given him? 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE HYMN 55 

We may make some such general classification of hymns, 
according to the predominant character of their contents, as 
follows: (i) Hymns of devotion, including those of petition, 
of divine communion, of praise, and of devout meditation; 
e.g., "Lord, we come before Thee now"; "Jesus, Lover of 
my soul " ; " My God, how wonderful Thou art! " " O Thou 
God of my salvation " ; " God is love ; His mercy brightens." 
(2) Hymns of religious experience and exhortation ; e.g., " In 
evil long I took delight " ; " Go, ye messengers of God " ; 
" Come, humble sinner, in whose breast." (3) Hymns of 
Christian communion, such as "Blest be the tie that binds." 
(4) Didactic hymns, such as, " What doth the ladder mean? " 
"Go, preach my gospel, saith the Lord"; "Ah! Lord, with 
trembling I confess." 

A " hymn," strictly speaking, is a song of the heart unto the 
Lord, and preeminently a song of praise. It might be well to 
limit the application of the word to such lyrics as these, and 
to call the others sacred songs. It is undoubtedly well that 
the " hymn " should have the preference in our selections for 
public worship, even as it has had the preference in the private 
devotions of Christians in all ages. What, then, shall we say 
of singing the invitations of the Gospel and the story of divine 
life in the soul? Is it not to men that these strains are ad- 
dressed? True; but to men as our fellow- worshipers, or, at 
least, as those whom we would gain unto God's service ; to 
men in the spirit of gratitude and prayer to God. So these, 
too, are songs of Christian love and praise. "Teaching 
and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and 
spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God." 
How naturally all these elements — the adoration of God, 
communion with one's own heart, Christian communion, and 
earnest religious appeal to the people— intermingle in one 
continuous flow of feeling and expression, may be seen both in 
the Book of Psalms and in the modern hymnal. 

As to didactic hymns, and especially those which show 



56 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

something of an argumentative or a polemic aim, they are 
gradually and properly suffered to fall into disuse. Not 
however because of the theology in them, but because of the 
form it takes, — the reasoning or moralizing. To leave the 
theology out would be to have nothing but sentimentality, 
empty and insipid, as the remainder. But the true purpose 
of a hymn is not to teach theology. Its voice is not that of 
instruction, but that of personal feeling. The theology — the 
saving truth, the knowledge of God— has entered into the 
heart, and in the power of the Spirit has wrought there the 
experience of penitence, of sonship to God, of life eternal ; 
and it is the emotions of this life of the soul that strive for ex- 
pression in poetry and song. Those were devout members 
of the Church of England, and sincere believers in the Cal- 
vinistic theology, who used to sing : 

" To perseverance I agree; 
The thing to me is clear : 
Because the Lord has promised me 
That I shall persevere." 

But their devotional life must have persisted in spite of such 
sacred poetry. In like manner, we can hardly think that mis- 
sionary zeal or love to God in any form is likely to be in- 
creased by singing to Him of 

" That Arab thief, as Satan bold, 

Who quite destroyed Thine Asian fold." 

Be a lover of hymns. Let them sing their melodies through 
your soul and help to make your daily life a song unto the 
Lord. Know something of their authorship and history. It 
seems to me that I never sing or hear George Herbert's hymn, 
" Teach me, my God and King," without feeling the touch of 
that holy and beautiful life out of which it arose. Nor can I 
read the hymn " O Thou who earnest from above " without 
remembering that John Wesley said of it, in his old age, that 



FORMS OF WORSHIP- THE HYMN 57 

for many years it had been the best expression he could give 
of his personal experience. To know whence a hymn comes 
and what it has been to saintly souls adds to its significance. 
The desire for such knowledge is indicated in connection with 
the first, the inspired, hymn-book of the church ; that is to 
say, in the titles affixed to the psalms : "A Psalm of David, 
when he was in the wilderness of Judah," " Michtam of David, 
when the Philistines took him in Gath," " A Psalm of Asaph," 
" A Prayer of Moses, the man of God," and so on. The de- 
vout and reverent transcribers of the psalms desired to know 
and to tell others in what circumstances they were written. 
Will it not be so with reference to the hymns we sing in Chris- 
tian worship, if we really love them? 

When Reginald Heber, a young English clergyman, was 
visiting his father-in-law, who was also a minister of the Church 
of England, he was incidentally requested by the latter to 
write something that could be sung in connection with a mis- 
sionary sermon to be preached the next day. Heber retired 
to a corner of the little parlor in which they were sitting, and 
wrote, in accordance with this unexpected request, the first 
three stanzas of " From Greenland's icy mountains," and a few 
minutes afterward added the fourth stanza. " It was printed 
that evening, and sung the next day by the people of Wrexham 
church." Does it not make our great missionary hymn still 
more inspiring to know that it seemed thus to have been given, 
with no labored effort of composition, to its author, and through 
him to the church of God ? 

In the year 1772 the Rev. John Fawcett, the beloved pastor 
of a Baptist congregation, a poor and scattered flock at Wains- 
gate, England, accepted a call to a large city congregation. 
His goods were packed up and the wagons were ready to start 
for London. But his people, who had come to bid him fare- 
well, could not keep back their grief at the thought of losing 
a pastor whom they held so dear, and begged him with tears 
not to leave them. It was more than he could bear. " You 



< 



58 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

may unpack my goods," he said, "and we will live for the 
Lord lovingly together." And then it was that he wrote : 

" Blest be the tie that binds 

Our hearts in Christian love." 

The sweet familiar words gain a deepened significance when 
we have learned the experience of Christlike sympathy and 
love out of which they were born. 

If we turn the pages of any good book of hymnology, such 
as Duffield's "English Hymns" or Butterworth's "Story of 
the Hymns," we shall find many notes, literary and biograph- 
ical, to show whence and how our words of holy song have 
come. Love will prompt us to seek this knowledge, and the 
knowledge will react to the increase of love. 

Jesus came into the world with a multitudinous song of glory 
and of peace, and each new era of spiritual life in the church 
finds a fitting emotional expression in a new outburst of sacred 
music. The hymns of one age, whatever their merits, are not 
necessarily the hymns of some other age, though the same 
great Gloria in Excehis may be heard in them all. Those of 
the Lollards would not have suited the Scotch Covenanters ; 
nor would the hymns of the Covenanters have been the best 
vehicle of praise for those early Methodists through whose 
revival singing " a new musical impulse " — as Green, the Eng- 
lish historian, has said — "was aroused in the people, which 
gradually changed the face of public devotion throughout 
England." Some Latin hymns of the medieval ages are in 
our hymn-books still, and are not likely soon to become anti- 
quated. Such are the Veni, Scrncte Spiritus — 

" Come, Holy Ghost, in love, 
Shed on us from above 
Thine own bright ray " — 

written, it is supposed, by King Robert II. of France (d. 1031), 
himself a singer in the choir of his church, and the gentlest of 



FORMS OF WORSHIP- THE HYMN 59 

monarchs; the "Jerusalem, the golden" of Bernard of Cluny 
(b. about 1 1 50); the Dies Ira of Thomas of Celano (d. about 
1250), "whose triple rhyme, as with three hammer-strokes, 
makes the depths of the soul to tremble " ; and those tender 
and mystic strains that sink into our hearts from the convent 
of Clairvaux: 

" Jesus, the very thought of Thee 
With sweetness fills the breast ; 
But sweeter far Thy face to see, 
And in Thy presence rest. 

" Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame, 
Nor can the memory find 
A sweeter sound than Thy blest name, 
O Saviour of mankind. 

" O Hope of every contrite heart, 
O Joy of all the meek, 
To those who ask, how kind Thou art! 
How good to those who seek!" 

But only an antiquary could wish by the use of these, or any 
of their successors in the intervening centuries, to repress the 
outflow of " Gospel hymns " in our day. Retaining what we 
will of the old, let us always be ready to " sing unto the Lord 
a new song" 

Similarly each stage of individual culture, mental and spiri- 
tual, must be allowed to sing its own hymns, even as it must 
offer its own prayers and do its own work— always within the 
limits of Christian knowledge and experience. To many of 
us a mere ditty, with its crude and barren repetitions, is neither 
tasteful nor reverent ; but there is no need of our being scan- 
dalized at finding one or two in the hymn-book. Such effu- 
sions as " I'm bound for the land of Canaan," " Oh, you must 
be a lover of the Lord," and the once popular " Oh, what ship 
is this that will take us all home?" are to many persons an 
appropriate expression of devotional feeling. Most of Keble's 
hymns would be meaningless to the Salvation Army ; and think 



60 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

of Keble singing some of theirs! The church organ and the 
anthem are good in their place, but so also is the Sunday- 
school song. 

There are many and diverse manifestations of the selfsame 
divine Spirit. Let us thank God for all His children through 
whom it has pleased Him to give us this ministration of devo- 
tional song, from Whittier, the Quaker poet, to Faber, the 
devout Roman Catholic. In one of his narratives of religious 
work among the Indians, Bishop Whipple tells of the transla- 
tion of certain favorite hymns into the Indian tongue ; and some 
of them are these : " Nearer, my God, to Thee," " Sun of my 
soul, Thou Saviour dear," " Lead, kindly Light," "Jesus, Lover 
of my soul." The selections doubtless were made with refer- 
ence to character rather than to authorship, but this makes 
their catholicity more suggestive — Unitarian, Episcopalian, 
Roman Catholic, Methodist. Or, to take a more pronounced 
example, Augustus Toplady was converted, when a youth of 
sixteen, under the preaching of an illiterate Methodist, and 
yet he believed Arminianism to be a rationalizing theology 
whose success would be destructive to the Gospel. The lan- 
guage he employs in his controversial writings on this subject 
is violent and abusive in the extreme. Nevertheless, the true 
faith of his heart, deeper than all the forms of his thought, was 
the same as that of the fellow- Christians whom he so grievously 
misapprehended, and it was only out of this faith that there 
could arise the spirit of joy and praise. So Toplady's glorious 
hymn, " Rock of Ages, cleft for me," dwells upon the lips of 
all evangelical Christians, far more of whom now reject his 
theologizing than accept it. Next to the Bible, the hymnal 
that any church puts into the hands of its people should make 
them feel and confess, " I believe in the church of God, the 
communion of saints." 

The history of the English hymn-book is comparatively 
brief. It began with Tate and Brady's metrical version of the 
Psalms, together with which were published seventy-four 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE HYMN 61 

hymns, about two hundred years ago. In the year 17 19 
the " Psalms and Hymns " of Isaac Watts made their ap- 
pearance, and marked the real beginning of the general 
and delighted use of the hymn-book among English-speaking 
Christians. 

Moreover, it is a matter of gratitude that our Christian 
hymnology has grown better from generation to generation ; 
but not a matter of surprise, for do we not both live in the 
present and inherit the past ? Still the need of improvement 
remains. We are now singing a good many feeble lines, in- 
herited and original. Wesley said, in his preface to the 
Methodist hymn-book, published in 1780, that in it there were 
" no doggerel, no blotches, nothing put in to patch up the 
rhyme, no feeble expletives." He felt prepared also to make 
an equally strong claim for its positive merits. Alas! for the 
trustworthiness of human judgment concerning that which is 
one's own. The book was a long step in advance, but even 
the negative perfection supposed to be realized in it is, after 
the lapse of a hundred years, still serving as an ideal. 

Let us not be over-critical. Especially let us not be so arc- 
critical as to have a keen eye for blemishes and a dull eye for 
that which is beautiful and good. But the good can be fully 
known and appreciated only when there is some sensitiveness 
to its opposite. Therefore, while declining the role of the 
fault-finder, we may notice faults as well as excellences. 

It is not extremely often that the worshiper has occasion to 
be disturbed in mind by objectionable sentiment in our familiar 
hymns; but here and there it occurs, as the following ex- 
amples show : 

" Oh, would He more of heaven bestow, 
And let the vessels break, 
And let our ransomed spirits go 
To grasp the God we seek." 

" If e'er my heart forget 

Her welfare or her woe, 



62 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Let every joy this heart forsake, 
And every grief o'erflow." 

" drive these dark clouds from my sky, 
Thy soul-cheering presence restore, 
Or take me to Thee up on high, 

Where winter and clouds are no more." 

The good taste and reverent feeling of the present day have 
discarded most of the amatory or fondling expressions which 
were not uncommon in the hymns of the last century ; but 
traces of these still remain, in such lines, e.g., as the following: 

" If Thou, my Jesus, still be nigh." 

" My Lord, my Love, is crucified." 

" And midst the embraces of Thy love 
He felt compassion rise." 

" Then speechless clasp Thee in my arms, 
The antidote of death." 

" Dear Saviour, let Thy beauties be 
My soul's eternal food." 

Less infrequent is extravagant or confused ox tasteless imagery ', 
as in the following examples : 

" Quench all his fiery darts and chase 
The fiend to his own hell." 

" Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, 
Tune my heart to sing Thy praise." 

" Teach me some melodious sonnet, 
Sung by flaming tongues above; 
Praise the Mount,— I'm fixed upon it, — 
Mount of Thy redeeming love." 

" Concealed in the cleft of Thy side." 

" Five bleeding wounds He bears, 

Received on Calvary." 
" Earth from afar hath heard Thy fame, 

And worms have learned to lisp Thy name." 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE HYMN 63 

" The Lord shall in your front appear, 
And lead the pompous triumph on." 

" High o'er the angelic bands He rears 
His once dishonored head." 

" I rode on the sky 
(Freely justified I ! ), 

Nor envied Elijah his seat ; 
My soul mounted higher 
In a chariot of fire, 

And the moon it was under my feet." 

" This robe of flesh I'll drop, and rise 
To seize the everlasting prize ; 
And shout while passing through the air, 
' Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer.' " 

There are also prose prayers in our hymn-books, such as : 

" Thy presence, gracious Lord, afford; 
Prepare us to receive Thy word"; 

and prose thanksgivings, such as : 

" Blest be our everlasting Lord, 
Our Father, God, and King " ; 

and prose meditations, such as : 

" Religion is the chief concern 
Of mortals here below." 

These are pious sentiments wrought into lyric form, though the 
indefinable spirit of imaginative sweetness and beauty is not in 
them. 

We are not to suppose, however, that the hymn which con- 
tains the finest poetic thought is necessarily the finest hymn. 
Probably no greater hymnist than Charles Wesley has yet been 
given to the church, but a great poet he certainly was not. 
Many of our hymns have more prose than poetry in them ; but 
those which, by common consent and common use, are ac- 
knowledged to be the best, whether poetical or not, will be 
found to have certain other characteristics. They are dis- 



64 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

tinctly emotional; they thrill with the spirit of devotion; they 
spontaneously flow out into song, rhythmic, musical, uplifting ; 
they express some common feeling of Christian worshipers, and 
not a peculiar or individual phase of experience ; their language 
and imagery are easily understood. " Lead, kindly Light," is 
more poetical and more pathetic than " Guide me, O Thou 
great Jehovah " ; in private devotion it would sink much 
deeper into many minds, but in the congregation the other 
will always be preferred. I have sometimes announced those 
exquisite lines of Whittier — 

" It may not be our lot to wield 
The sickle in the ripened field" — 

but never without feeling, somehow, before the singing was 
ended, that the people were trying to sing poetry instead of 
spontaneously singing a song. Not that the finely poetic 
hymns are never to be used in the congregation. Let us have 
them in the hymn-book, and let us use them both in public 
and in private ; but intelligently. 

In our hymn studies even the mechanism of verse — its 
measures, rhymes, and stanzas, with the technical names which 
designate them — is not to be despised. It is well enough to 
know the difference between an iambus and a trochee, between 
primary and secondary feet, between a verse and a stanza. 
And if your ear is not offended by bad rhymes, — such as " bar " 
and " here," " sins " and " kings," " dreams " and " intervenes," 
" mansions " and " transient," — it can hardly be very sensitive, 
on the other hand, to good rhymes. 

The selection of suitable hymns for the various occasions of 
congregational worship, though not a difficult duty, is often ill 
done. Should not the first hymn be distinctively devotional ? 
Should it ever be an exhortation to the ungodly? The hymn 
after preaching may properly be expressive of the emotions 
which the sermon is expected to excite, or, as we commonly 
phrase it, " on the same subject " as the sermon. The " inter- 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE HYMN 65 

mediate " hymn may be intermediate in character as well as in 
position. 

We are apt to have favorite hymns, and are undoubtedly 
entitled to them. But remember you are not ministering ex- 
clusively to persons of the same temperament, tastes, and 
religious development as your own. Try to offer each his 
"portion of food in due season." Know the hymn-book, not 
merely a few familiar hymns ; know the people, not merely a 
few friends like-minded with yourself; and make the most of 
the whole book in the interest of the whole congregation. 

Read Duffield's " English Hymns." 



LECTURE IV 

FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE PRAYERS 

STANDING in the presence of God and of the congrega- 
tion, we speak to them as His messengers. Kneeling in 
the same divine and human presence, we speak to God as the 
representatives of the people. 

Was it true only of the temple that the house of God shall 
be called a house of prayer ? Shall our houses of worship be 
only subordinately houses of worship, because they are also 
preaching-places? The temple was a place of instruction 
(Luke ii. 46; John vii. 14), but predominantly of prayer; the 
synagogue was a place of prayer, but predominantly of instruc- 
tion. Let the Christian church edifice become both temple 
and synagogue : let prayer and preaching be equally charac- 
teristic of its services. Indeed, preaching is itself devotional, 
— kindling mind and heart with the thought of God and the 
sense of His presence. Many a sermon, with no great change 
of its phraseology, might serve as a devout meditation or be 
sung as a hymn. But the supreme act of worship is prayer, 
and the highest form of prayer, as we have already seen, is 
not the reading of a liturgy, but the utterance of one's own 
words, with the ability which God giveth, under the pressure 
of present spiritual need and aspiration. We can hardly think 
of such a mode of worship in any other than a Christian con- 
gregation, and we are unwilling to think of it as excluded 
therefrom. It may be forbidden, but will persist in claiming 
G6 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE PRAYERS 67 

its place as one chief form of expression in the "religion of 
the Word." 

Many, it is true, do not attend church for prayer. To 
come in after the " introductory exercises " is unobjectionable 
to them. " I'll be there in time for the sermon," is sometimes 
said, and is often doubtless the unspoken preference. But 
remember there are others who really desire to pray and who 
need help therein. We, their ministers, are sent to help them, 
— to be the interpreters and utterers, in Christ's name, of their 
inmost souls before God. Man is sometimes called the priest 
of nature, because the whole material creation may be said to 
find articulate expression in him. When the psalmist sang — 

" Praise ye the Lord. . . . 

Praise ye Him, sun and moon : 
Praise Him, all ye stars of light. . . . 
Praise the Lord from the earth, 
Ye dragons, and all deeps : 
Fire and hail, snow and vapor ; 
Stormy wind, fulfilling His word: 
Mountains and all hills ; 
Fruitful trees and all cedars : 
Beasts and all cattle ; 
Creeping things and flying fowl," — 

he was himself praising God in behalf of the speechless earth 
and sky, which Paul afterward saw waiting and longing for 
their redemption. Similarly is the minister the priest of his 
people. What is the charm and power of poetry? Is it not 
that the poet feels more deeply certain ideas, emotions, ideals 
that we have all felt in some measure, and expresses them as 
we could not ? In our stammering and dumbness the chosen 
poet is a voice for us. So is the minister to like-minded souls 
in public prayer. Others also, as they listen, may feel that it 
must be a good thing thus to draw near to God, and so will 
the devotional spirit be awakened in their hearts. Such a 
minister, even while kneeling in the pulpit, is a pastor indeed, 
leading his flock directly to the Fountain of living waters. 



68 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

But suppose the devout souls in the congregation have no 
help from their leader. Suppose that, on the contrary, an 
effort be necessary to prevent being chilled by his coldness, or 
pained by his flippancy, or distracted by his wandering words, 
or, what is more probable, stupefied by a " slow, mechanic 
exercise." Surely he is not likely to preach with power, not 
having himself laid hold of the power of God in communion 
with Him. 

But, whatever the sermon may be, it cannot substitute the 
prayer. In preaching we look into the faces of our hearers 
and they into ours. But prayer demands another and an 
equally symbolic act, — the closing of the eye. It means that 
we have shut out the world of sense and are looking other- 
where. The act itself is an appeal to Heaven : 

" So much the rather Thou, celestial Light, 
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers irradiate." 

Do we expect any sermon to take the place of this uplooking 
to God? 

Your imagination has been excited at the thought of be- 
coming an effective preacher, of swaying a congregation "by 
the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of 
righteousness, on the right hand and on the left." But how 
often have you longed with inexpressible desire for the gift of 
prayer ? How much pains have you taken to stir up this gift 
in you? How many times have you cried, " Oh that I could 
so pray with my congregation — so appropriately, comprehen- 
sibly, tenderly, earnestly, trustfully— as to unite all believing 
hearts at the feet of Him who, being the Inspirer, must be also 
the Hearer of prayer, and to call down the fullness of His 
blessing upon them " ? 

There must be preparation ; and the essential preparation is 
not specific, but general. It is in the whole course and con- 
duct of life, in personal character and experience. How do 
we pray in the congregation? It depends first of all upon who 



FORMS OF WORSHIP-THE PRAYERS 69 

we are. What manner of man is it that is praying? What 
are his habitual thoughts and feelings? What does he know 
about God's love and will and service? What affluence of 
nature has he? What power of the Spirit in his heart and life? 
Pulpit prayer is only a fruitful bough from the hidden roots of 
secret devotion and of all daily nearness and obedience to 
God. 

Do we want to pray? Are we sometimes hungry for com- 
munion with the Father of spirits? From the troubles that 
oppress and the mysteries that perplex and the sins that make 
the conscience ache, do we flee to Him as our refuge and 
Saviour? Do we find a sweet relief, an inexpressible, holy 
joy, an unfathomable peace, in talking with God? Besides 
all this, are we in sympathy with men, so as to feel their joys 
and sorrows, their longings, their necessities and burdens, in 
our own hearts? Then we can pray in the congregation. 
Not, perhaps, with the fluency of some ; but if the spirit of ador- 
ing love and fervent supplication breathe in our broken utter- 
ances, it will be felt by them that hear, and the gift of prayer, 
like all others, will improve through use. " If ye abide in 
Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, 
and it shall be done unto you:" this is our Lord's statement 
of the gracious and irreversible conditions of successful asking 
at the hand of the infinite Giver. 

Upon our knees at the beginning of the still hour of devo- 
tion we may ask, " Lord, teach us to pray." But the whole 
answer will not be given immediately. For here is one of 
those lessons that God is teaching us, if we be willing, every 
day and everywhere in life. Men pass through life and learn 
many things. Some learn the secret of the Lord, learn so to 
call upon His name as to receive the answer of peace. If we 
have the commandments of Christ and keep them, abiding 
in Him, the divine instinct of prayer will find its true and con- 
stant expression. And in the house of the Lord, through our 
praying will prayer be multiplied. Others will share in the 



70 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

praises and petitions we offer, and find it easier to come to the 
God of all grace. 

It will quicken both the spirit and the gift of prayer to 
ponder the devotional language of others. How much of it 
there is in the Bible! Read and assimilate spiritually these 
prayers of God's children in former days, — of psalmists, 
prophets, apostles, — and let them become, as they will often- 
times, the spontaneous vehicle of your own heart's desire be- 
fore God. Note the deep devotional language in the Epistles. 
Paul not only speaks of his prayers for the Christian congre- 
gation, but sometimes gives them (Eph. i. 16-23 '< "*• 14-21 ; 
Phil. i. 9-1 1 ). We may take into our hearts also the very 
prayers of Jesus, — not only the one which He taught His dis- 
ciples to say, but His own recorded words of communion with 
the Father, — and may seek to know more and more of the 
filial love and trust of Him whom the Father hears always 
(Matt. xi. 25, 26; xxvi. 36-42; Luke xxiii. 34, 46; John xi. 
41, 42; xii. 27, 28; xvii.). 

Books of devotion are helpful. Many published prayers 
are worthy of repeated reading and meditation, — such, for ex- 
ample, as those of Jay, Beecher, and Dr. Joseph Parker. They 
enlarge our views of the possibilities of converse with God, 
shaming the barren generality of our own requests and the 
meagerness of our acknowledgment of the divine goodness, 
helping us to interpret and express the multiplicity of human 
needs, deepening our sense of the nearness of God and of that 
abounding tender mercy that makes all our wants His care. 

But there should be specific preparation for prayer in the 
pulpit. And here an objection, oftener vaguely felt than dis- 
tinctly urged, may receive a moment's notice : " Real prayer 
is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and a prepared prayer cannot 
have this inspiration." But while the first of these two propo- 
sitions is a great truth, the other is manifestly erroneous. Is 
not the real sermon, likewise, the word of God through the 
Spirit? And yet think of the hours of thought expended 



FORMS OF WORSHIP- THE PRAYERS 71 

upon the preparation to preach ! May we not have the pres- 
ence of the Holy Spirit preparing us to pour out the whole 
thought of our heart before God as well as in the act itself? 
Indeed, as a preparation for private prayer it is profitable to 
employ a short time in gathering up our thoughts, saying within 
ourselves, " What shall I ask of the Lord? what shall I praise 
Him for? what is in my heart to utter before Him now?" 
" Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanks- 
giving ; withal praying for us also, that God may open unto us 
a door for the word " (Col. iv. 2, 3). Much more is this im- 
portant when our voice is the voice of many others at the 
throne of grace. 

I believe that the good effects of such instruction as the 
following, in the Presbyterian " Directory of Worship," may 
be widely seen in the pulpits of that church: "We think it 
necessary to observe that, although we do not approve, as is 
well known, of confining ministers to set or fixed forms of 
prayer for public worship, yet it is the indispensable duty of 
every minister, previously to entering upon his office, to pre- 
pare and qualify himself for this part of his duty as well as for 
preaching. He ought, by a thorough acquaintance with the 
holy Scriptures, by reading the best writers on the subject, by 
meditation, and by a life of communion with God in secret, 
to endeavor to acquire both the spirit and the gift of prayer. 
Not only so, but when he is to enter on particular acts of 
worship he should endeavor to compose his spirit and to digest 
his thought for prayer." 

It is well to write prayers, though not with the intention of 
repeating them. Dr. Chalmers is said to have sometimes 
written and memorized his pulpit prayers. But simple pre- 
meditation of mind and heart is undoubtedly the better way. 
Think upon the revelation of God in Christ ; take in the oc- 
casion ; consider the souls that are soon to appear before you, 
and others whom the church should remember in the heavenly 
Father's presence. Do not give your strength ungrudgingly 



72 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

to the composition of the sermon, and feel that as to worship 
an impromptu utterance is good enough. Both your congre- 
gation and yourself will suffer from this, as from all other 
forms of prayerlessness. 

I have heard a young preacher say, " My mind is so oc- 
cupied with my sermon up to the very moment of entering 
the pulpit, that I am unprepared to pray." But how much 
experience is required to prove that in such a case he must 
also have been unprepared to preach? More than one blessing 
waits upon the doing of the right ; and time given to needful 
preparing for the ministry of worship will add power to the 
preaching,— will be the best possible preparation of the ser- 
mon. Even if it were not so, on what plea could we justify 
the neglect of one such duty of our office in the interest of 
another? Rather let us resolve, with the apostles in Jerusalem, 
to " give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry 
of the word." 

And now what kind of prayer is it toward which this devo- 
tional preparation should be directed? What elements of 
truth and power in this part of our life and ministry shall be 
emphasized? 

i. Reality. Do not speak of this prayer as a "pulpit per- 
formance " or as an " address to the throne of grace." Such 
are not the biblical descriptive terms : " He that cometh to 
God"; "Ask, and ye shall receive"; "Pour out your heart 
before Him " ; " In the morning will I direct my prayer unto 
Thee, and will look up" Nothing official or artificial, but, 
like all worship, simple, natural, genuine, must be the prayer 
before the congregation. 

True, it is common prayer; yours, indeed, but not yours 
alone. Distinctively individual requests are here out of place. 
Whatever your own trials, joys, hopes, perplexities, necessities, 
they are all to be merged in those of the men and women in 
whose presence and in whose behalf you are making request 
and offering praise. None the less, however, may you come 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE PRAYERS 73 

to God sincerely and heartily ; not otherwise, indeed, can we 
come at all. 

Avoid the use of favorite phrases and all repetition by rote. 
"Bless the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, 
the distressed and the oppressed everywhere : " there is a 
rhythm in this sentence that has given it wide acceptability, but 
in most "of our congregations it is now dead upon lips and 
ears. So with many other current formulas, such as : " through 
dangers seen and unseen " ; " make our peace with Thee, our 
calling and our election sure " ; " Thou canst not look upon 
sin with the least degree of allowance " ; " enough, come up 
higher " ; " in the capacity of a prayer-meeting " ; " duties de- 
volving upon us " ; " this, Thine earthly sanctuary " ; " which 
the world can neither give nor take away " ; " no visible mark 
of Thy displeasure resting upon us " ; " we have raised the 
puny arm of rebellion against Thee " ; " the last and the least 
remains of the carnal mind " ; " in health and strength, with 
the right use of our reason, while others are racked with pain 
or scorched with fever." No matter how significant some of 
these expressions may be in themselves, they are empty of 
meaning to us when merely echoed from some other person's 
lips or from our own in the past. Think of them off your 
knees, and get command of equivalent or similar expressions. 
It is not a difficult matter. 

The same may be said of Scripture quotations. Have you 
only a few of the most familiar at command? Is it your habit 
to repeat certain passages over and over? Get possession of 
others. Find them for yourself by a sympathetic perusal of 
the Scriptures, and let them become, through personal appro- 
priation, a part of your own soul's speech, fresh and vital. 

Avoid extravagance of language. "We are profoundly 
grateful to Thee:" is that really our meaning, or do we 
simply mean that we are grateful, or that we ought to be pro- 
foundly grateful? Let us try to speak the truth in prayer as 
well as in all human intercourse. 



74 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Consider the significance of the names by which God has 
been pleased to make Himself known to us in the Scriptures. 
Each offers its own contribution to our knowledge of the in- 
finite riches and glory of the Godhead. Do we truly receive 
these supreme words of revelation? Then we shall not me- 
chanically repeat some one or two of them. Though it should 
be the name of which all the others may be regarded as par- 
tial and preliminary expressions, " Our Father who art in 
heaven," even this highest revelation of God may become, 
through constant and unmeaning repetition, a form of words 
only. Does not the example of our Lord offer its lesson here 
also to those who would be taught of Him? For although 
the name " Father " is that by which the beloved Son came to 
God in His life on earth, yet with this name other words are 
joined,— "holy Father," "righteous Father," "Lord of hea- 
ven and earth." 

Not only are these names significant in themselves, but we 
should consider their significance with respect to the particular 
request or thanksgiving in which they are used. Note the 
defect in such petitions as the following: "Almighty God, 
search our hearts and reveal us to ourselves, for Thou knowest, 
as we know not, our innermost thoughts and motives " ; " O 
Thou all-wise God, strengthen us and uphold us by the right 
hand of Thy power." 

Now that which finds the ear of God is, indeed, the voice of 
the heart, and no mere sounds from the lips. But for the very 
purpose of avoiding artificiality, and stirring up the heart to 
speak through the words in simplicity and godly sincerity, 
must we endeavor to use the appropriate word ; and, above all, 
in naming the name of God. 

2. Reverence. Remember where you are and what you are 
undertaking to do. Jesus said, " When ye pray, say, Our 
Father which art in heaven, Hallotved be Thy name." But 
some of us speak to Him in a manner less reverent than the 
manner of our approach to many of our fellow-men. Do we 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE PRAYERS 75 

close the eye in prayer? We also bend the knee. " His 
voice," says George Herbert of the "parson praying," "is 
treatable and slow, yet not so slow neither as to let the fer- 
vency of the supplicant hang and die between speaking ; but 
with a grave liveliness, between fear and zeal, pausing, yet 
pressing, he performs his duty." A prayer of Austin Phelps 
has been described as suggesting, "as a suitable setting, a 
cathedral on the shore of a silent river, with the twilight and 
the bowed heads of the worshiping congregation, and the soft 
breathing of adoration," such was its " reverence and beauty." 
Here was moral reverence in connection with the finest literary 
gifts and culture. But it has no peculiar affinity with such 
associations. The prayer of the most unlettered man may be 
tremulous with this same spirit. 

The too frequent utterance of the name of God in prayer is 
irreverent. Better hesitate and stammer, better be silent, than 
thus to take the name of the Lord in vain, uttering it for lack 
of some other word. 

The use of "you"— the polite form of the pronoun of the 
second person — instead of " thou " is painfully out of place in 
prayer. How can any one suppose it to express the true feel- 
ing of reverent and gladsome worship? 

Amatory words, such as " dear Father," " sweet Jesus," " my 
Jesus," are lacking in reverence. The psalmists did not use 
them, nor Isaiah, nor Paul, nor our Lord ; and surely we can 
have no better examples to follow. One can imagine certain 
moods of genuine emotion that might seem to call for such 
expressions, but how often are these moods experienced? 
Childlike trustfulness toward the Father who is in heaven, 
whole-hearted love to Him, is not fondness and unseemly 
familiarity. Is there not always intermingled with it a spirit 
of holy and loving awe? "Some will probably think," says 
Wesley, in his sermon on " Knowing Christ after the Flesh," 
" that I have been over-scrupulous with regard to one partic- 
ular word, which I never use myself either in verse or prose, 



76 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

in praying or preaching, though it is very frequently used by 
modern divines, both of the Romish and reformed churches. 
It is the word dear. Many of these say, both in preaching, in 
prayer, and in giving thanks, ' Dear Lord ' or ' Dear Saviour ' ; 
and my brother used the same in many of his hymns even as 
long as he lived." I do not think Wesley was "over-scrupu- 
lous." 

Praying at the congregation — in other words, preaching to 
them on our knees, with our eyes shut — is shamefully irrever- 
ent. It is offering instruction, or appeal, or reproof, or com- 
mendation, or even flattery, to men, while pretending to offer 
supplication and adoring gratitude to God. 

Rhetorical Jittery is irreverent. Surely the most inappropriate 
of all places for its employment is that holy of holies, the place 
of communion with the Lord. Not that imaginative language, 
even the most beautiful or sublime, must needs be rejected. 
This may be, as in the Scriptures, the most perfect form of 
expression for feelings entirely consistent with the deepest 
reverence. Expression is not display. 

Speaking of God, instead of to Him, in prayer is irreverent. 
"Will the Lord bless His people to-day?" "We come to 
worship God " ; " We pray that God may be pleased to honor 
His word with success" ; —to whom are we saying these things? 
If to the congregation, the language is quite appropriate : it is 
spoken of our Father in heaven. Rest assured, there are de- 
vout minds that cannot pray such prayers, and so, instead of 
leading them, we stand in their way to obstruct and confuse. 
Probably the habit was begun through the prayer we were 
taught to offer in childhood : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep ; 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep." 

The author of the sweet familiar words probably wrote, " I 
pray Thee, Lord," but usually it has not been so delivered 
to us. 



FORMS OF WORSHIP- THE PRAYERS 77 

A violent tone and ma?iner in prayer is irreverent. All 
screaming, declamation, hurried and precipitate utterance, 
meaningless gesticulation, are painfully out of place. Let the 
tone of voice be not, indeed, monotonous (as though there 
were anything reverential in a sleep-inducing murmur), but 
devoutly earnest, tender, imploring, — "with a grave liveliness, 
pausing, yet pressing." 

A careless or hasty manner of closing our prayers is irreverent. 
Sometimes the " Amen " is said with an apparent sense of relief, 
and at the same time perhaps the minister is rising to take up 
some other part of the service. Better linger one silent, sacred 
moment on our knees. The Jewish doctors laid down three 
rules for pronouncing the "Amen " in the synagogue : " ( i ) That 
it be not pronounced too hastily and swiftly, but with a grave 
and distinct voice ; (2) that it be not louder than the tone of 
him that blessed ; (3) that it be expressed in faith, with a cer- 
tain persuasion that God would bless them and hear their 
prayer." Is there not something for Christian edification in 
these ancient rules of worship? 

In like manner, when the benediction is pronounced, let 
there be a moment of silent, prayerful response in the congre- 
gation. Then let them quietly disperse. It is the custom 
in the Episcopal Church, and is worthy of universal obser- 
vance. 

Reverence will seek to express itself, among other modes, 
in some symbolic attitude, — such as standing, bowing, kneeling, 
prostration. Sitting expresses no reverence, and is not a de- 
votional attitude, either in prayer or praise. Nor is it so re- 
garded except, by many persons, in church. In private or 
family prayer it seems never to be practised, except in the 
case of physical infirmity. 

Church architecture and furnishing are sometimes at fault. 
Ought not every church in which worshipers are expected 
to kneel in prayer to have the pews a suitable distance apart, 
and to be provided with kneeling-stools, so that without con- 



78 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

fusion or inconvenience the congregation may unite in the 
prayer, "all devoutly kneeling"? 

3. Explicitness. Asking is a very definite act, unfavorable 
to verbiage and vagueness. 

But there are two cautions to be observed : first, prayer is 
not mere asking, not by any means a simple series of petitions ; 
it is communion with God, and therefore calls for a certain 
fullness of speech. The collect is not its only proper form of 
expression. Take the psalms as examples, and our Lord's 
prayer on the night before His crucifixion. Secondly, in 
public prayer there may be too great minuteness. Of course 
cases occur that should be particularized ; but do not describe 
every case of sickness or other trouble in your congregation so 
circumstantially as to make known to everybody the person 
whom you have in mind. The effect of this would be dis- 
tracting rather than devotional. " I cannot tell you any news," 
said a lady to a friend whom she met at noon on Sunday, " for 
I was not at church. I did not hear my pastor's prayer, and 
so do not know who is sick or about to leave town." 

Nor is it expedient to make yourself a subject of public 
prayer. Many will pray for you on entering church, and you 
will pray for yourself ; let this suffice. 

4. Sympathy with our fellow -men. If we pray for ourselves 
in a spirit of enmity toward others, God will not hear us (Mark 
xi. 25, 26). Surely, then, we cannot hope that our prayers for 
others will be availing if we be not united with them in sym- 
pathy and love. Yet such a spirit is not always shown. 
" Not once, but many a time," says Dr. Stalker, " I have heard 
a minister on the Sabbath morning, when he rose up and 
began to pray, plunging at once into a theological meditation ; 
and in all the prayers of the forenoon there would scarcely be 
a single sentence making reference to the life of the people 
during the week. Had you been a stranger alighted from an- 
other planet, you would never have dreamed that the human 
beings assembled there had been toiling, rejoicing, and sor- 



FORMS OF WORSHIP- THE PRAYERS 79 

rowing for six days ; that they had mercies to give thanks for 
and sins to be forgiven ; or that they had children at home to 
pray for, and sons across the sea." 

Faith in God and Christlike love to our fellows is the spirit 
of true intercession. The sense of one's individuality should 
be well-nigh lost in the realization of the brotherhood of 
souls. 

5. Order. How hard are many prayers to follow! They 
ramble aimlessly. Petition, thanksgiving, confession, adoration, 
all commingled and repeated over and over ; no method, no 
progress. How much better to have a place in our prayer for 
confession, a place for thanksgiving, and so on ; not to be 
observed, of course, with mechanical precision, but as a general 
guide. Is this unscriptural? Will it check the spirit of devo- 
tion? Just the opposite. It will help us to utter all that is in 
our hearts, and nothing else. 

Note the order of the Lord's Prayer : the first three petitions 
relating to God, — to the hallowing of His name, the establish- 
ment of His kingdom, the doing of His will ; the remaining 
four relating to ourselves,— to our need of daily food, of for- 
giveness, of merciful guidance, of deliverance from evil. 

Let me suggest the following as an order of topics for the 
prayer before sermon, to be changed or modified constantly, 
according to one's judgment: invocation, adoration, thanks- 
giving, confession, petition, consecration. Each of these themes, 
moreover, is susceptible of numerous subdivisions which it 
would be well for you to make for yourselves. 

If you will take the pains to seek out appropriate Scripture 
passages and associate them with such topics, it will further 
help to furnish you for this ministration of prayer. Nowhere 
are the very words of Scripture more fitting and expressive 
than in holy converse with God. 

Look also to the hymns and Scripture lessons for suggestions. 
But no matter whence the topics and their order come, let it 
be your habit to observe an order : to pass from topic to topic 



80 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

in leading the devotions of the congregation,— always in the 
spirit of Christian liberty. 

I need hardly add that in any one prayer a few topics 
only can be embraced. And a danger to be constantly 
guarded against is that of too great length, either from in 
troducing an undue number of topics, or from dwelling too 
long on some of them. Are not six or eight minutes ordinarily 
long enough? At one or both of two things you will probably 
be surprised when first brought to realize them, — the excessive 
length of your prayers, and the large amount of verbiage in 
them. "Be the reason what it may," says Dr. Ebenezer 
Porter, " the fact is beyond doubt that no man is conscious 
of his own length in prayer." Still no three-minute rule, nor 
any other time measure, can here be rigidly applied. There 
has been given us liberty of prophesying ; yet the spirit of the 
prophets must be subject to the prophets, both in preaching 
and in prayer. 

Premeditation will tend of itself to promote brevity, as in 
the similar case of preparation to preach, because not so much 
time will be occupied in finding one's way ; the heart will be 
engaged from the first ; the " musing " will have caused the 
fire to burn. 

As to the Concluding Prayer, two characteristic qualities 
may be noted : it should be brief and sympathetic with the 
substance a?id spirit of the sermon, even as all public prayers 
ought to have relation to the circumstances that give occasion 
for them. 

And now I have ventured to offer instruction on a delicate 
and difficult theme. Who would be willing to bear the name 
of a critic of the soul's converse with God? Nevertheless, 
prayer, like preaching, has not only its divine, but its human 
element; and the latter, like all things human, is beset with 
errors which are properly subjected to criticism and correction. 
Your body is not too sacred for the surgeon's knife when some 
rapacious tumor is burrowing in the flesh. 



FORMS OF WORSHIP— THE PRAYERS 81 

But chiefly will there be needed — may we never forget it! — 
in this ministration the gracious quickening power of the Holy 
Spirit. Often you will kneel in the presence of a cold and 
inert congregation. Little help will be received from them ; 
but your commission, remember, is to give help, — not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister. Be independent of the people, 
and at the same time in heartfelt sympathy with them, that 
you may indeed become their helpers. It will not be in vain. 
Ere long a new sense of the divine presence will come to 
many ; the hidden springs of devout feeling will be touched ; 
there will be less coldness and abstraction of mind, more of 
faith and its blessed effects. Of Robert Murray McCheyne 
it was said : " In his prayers he held such reverential and en- 
dearing communion with God— he pressed so near the throne, 
there was something so filial in his ' Abba, Father,' so express 
and urgent and hopeful were his supplications — that it was 
awakening to hear him pray. It was enough to make some 
Christians feel, ' Hitherto we have asked nothing in Jesus' 
name.' " Yet this man had no other access to the Father in 
heaven than is offered to us all. 

One more form of worship, as well-nigh universally observed 
in Christian congregations, must be considered, — the Closing 
Benediction. 

Every deep and earnest Christian wish for the welfare of a 
friend thrills with a spirit of prayer. A devout " God bless 
you! " is in it, uttered or unspoken. So the ancient peace- 
greeting among the Hebrews (Ruth ii. 4), when not observed 
as a mere polite ceremony, returned to its original significance 
and became a petition to God. 

Was it not a true and beautiful act of the Jewish mothers 
to bring their little children to Jesus, that He might "put His 
hands on them and pray "?_ 

Especially at time of parting, in this life of vicissitude and 
peril, with its always unknown to-morrows, is the last word 
properly a literal " adieu " or " good-by." 



82 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Now the congregation assemble to hear the word of God 
and to offer themselves to Him in worship. They are led by 
the minister in their devotions, and receive the Gospel message 
at his mouth. What shall be his last word as they disperse 
and depart? What more natural, more inevitable, than that 
it should be his blessing,— some expression of fervent prayer 
to God for their highest good? Accordingly we find that in 
the ancient church, by divine command, Aaron and his suc- 
cessors were to bless the people (Num. vi. 24-26). And in 
the early Christian churches it needed no command to estab- 
lish the custom of dismissing the congregation with some form 
of blessing, such as " The Lord be with you! " or " Depart in 
peace! " In our day the richer and more significant apostolic 
benediction (2 Cor. xiii. 14) is used, and the blessing of the 
triune God invoked upon the people. 

What, then, is the nature of this benediction? It is not in 
the slightest degree sacerdotal. Nor is it the same as the 
congregational prayer. Suppose you chanced to see a person 
in secret devotion, and knew he was praying for you ; would 
it not touch your heart with gratitude and with a solemn sense 
of the nearness of God? " We children got to understand by 
a sort of spiritual instinct," says John G. Paton, speaking of 
the " sanctuary closet " into which his godly father would retire 
every day to hold communion with the heavenly Father, " that 
prayers were being poured out there for us, as of old by the 
high priest within the veil of the most holy place. We occa- 
sionally heard the pathetic :choes of a trembling voice plead- 
ing as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that 
door on tiptoe, not to disturb the holy colloquy." Why did 
Jesus tell Simon Peter, on the eve of the betrayal, that He 
had prayed for him (Luke xxii. 31, 32)? The benediction is 
a prayer, and at the same time the assurance, " It is for you — 
may God bless yoic ! " 

But perhaps there is no part of congregational worship that 
is more likely to degenerate into unmeaning form. What an 



FORMS OF WORSHIP- THE PRAYERS S3 

infinitude of grace and truth in the words! And yet the tone 
and manner of utterance often show too plainly that we 
employ them merely as a customary method of closing the 
exercises. 

It is easy to be a priest, easy to perform a rite as if some- 
how it must have its effect ex opere operato, easy to repeat 
familiar phraseology with a vacant or a wandering mind. 
But all such dead routine is destructive of the office and in- 
fluence of the minister of the new covenant. Mean your pas- 
toral benediction. Let it be a real intercession in behalf of 
the people. Then may you trust that it will indeed bring with 
it the blessing of the Father and turn to their salvation through 
the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ. 

Read Dr. Samuel Miller's "Thoughts on Public Prayer," Austin 
Phelps's "The Still Hour." 



LECTURE V 



THE PRAYER-MEETING 



IN many cases the preacher's first public ministration is to 
lead a prayer-meeting, and on to the close of his ministry 
this is likely to be one of his stated and constant services. 
He may be, in the fullest sense in which the word is applicable 
to any man, the inspiration of the meeting ; and, on the other 
hand, instances might be mentioned in which he seems to be 
in the way, — not a minister, but a burden to be borne. Whether 
the prayer-meeting shall be a piece of drudgery from which in 
our secret heart we would gladly be excused, or whether it 
shall command our observance from week to week as a duty 
somewhat less than irksome, or whether it shall be a weekly 
recurring joy and an instrument of ever-increasing power, 
depends upon ourselves. Let us give to it freely of our thought, 
love, energy, zeal, prayer, and it will enrich the Christian life 
of all its participants, most of all our own. Let it be " Oh, 
nothing but the prayer-meeting," and it will be numbered with 
the most lifeless of our dead works. 

Magnify the prayer-meeting ; love it ; make it a refreshing 
and a delight. Personally you are in great need of it ; and, as 
Gladstone said of the orator and his audience, what you get 
there from your brethren as a mist you may give them back 
as a shower. The young preacher's adviser who said, " Give 
one third of your time to the pulpit, one third to your pastoral 
calls, and one third to the prayer-meeting," would hardly have 
84 



THE PRAYER-MEETING 85 

been able to justify this threefold division of time ; but his 
hyperbole may serve to emphasize a neglected truth. There 
is infinite sweetness and worth in the communion of saints. 

The closer the prayer-meeting and the pulpit are brought 
together, the better for both. It is not unusual to contrast 
the freedom of the one with the fixedness and formality of the 
other. But if our "public service" be distinguished by these 
latter qualities, it stands greatly in need of revision and revivi- 
fication. Doubtless it might be well for some pulpits that the 
preacher should take more of his prayer-meeting self into them, 
and it might help the prayer-meeting to have somewhat more 
of his preachi?ig self in that. The Sunday services and the 
mid-week meeting are by no means essentially different. The 
aim of both is the same, and the same means are employed, — 
the Word and the worship of God. The difference is a matter 
of different proportions in the mixture of elements and of 
modification in their outward forms. 

Some of the more distinctive marks of this social Christian 
ordinance will appear as we look at the subject from our prac- 
tical point of view, — the ministration of the prayer-meeting. 

i. There must be preparation, both general and specific. 
Though the true minister of Christ, living and walking in the 
Spirit, is never absolutely unprepared to pray with his people 
or to speak the word of truth, yet it is not given to any human 
being to be always at his best, and the special service requires 
the special gathering up of materials and the concentration of 
energy. It matters not how extraordinary his gifts or how 
protracted his experience. One of the richest and readiest 
preachers of our day has said: "Although training for the 
pulpit is one thing and training for the prayer-meeting is an- 
other, I think that the man who is to excel in prayer-meetings 
must train more for them, though differently, than for the 
pulpit. I should be very sorry to be forced into the conduct 
of a prayer-meeting without having anticipated it during the 
day ; not so much that I might think what I was going to say, 



86 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

but, as it were, to beat up my nature, to get into a higher 
mood, to rise into a thought more of the infinite ; to get some 
such relation to men as I think God has, of sympathy, pity, 
tenderness, and sweetness ; to get my heart all right, so that 
everything in me should work sympathetically toward devo- 
tional ends." 

One excellent expedient would be to announce the prayer- 
meeting topic from the pulpit, and request the people to bear 
it in mind and to make some preparation for its consideration 
themselves. 

Make an experiment— if, indeed, you regard it a matter for 
experimenting. Spend the day in reading, sermonizing, visit- 
ing from house to house, whatever you will, without reference 
to the circle of prayer in which you are to stand in the even- 
ing ; think of topics of prayer only while on your knees before 
the congregation ; take a stanza of some hymn that has been 
sung, or some familiar verse that seems easy to talk about in 
the Scripture that has been read, as the starting-point of your 
remarks. Make this your rule. Occasionally the result may 
be satisfactory ; but for the most part it will be poverty and 
barrenness, and perhaps a hard, grinding sense of duty in the 
minds of all. Try another plan. Let your thoughts during 
the day often find their way to the evening service. Think 
of the appropriate truth that shall be the topic of the occasion ; 
give whatever time may be necessary to get a clear view of it ; 
think of the people who will be present and pray for them; 
know what the hymns and Scripture lesson shall be (always 
reserving the liberty to make desirable changes) ; let topics of 
prayer be suggested by cases brought to your attention dur- 
ing the day, e.g., in pastoral visits ; be unsatisfied without some 
measure of eagerness for the hour of meeting ; let the sound 
of the church bell be answered by some such vibration of soul 
as Dr. Joseph Parker tells of in his Sunday morning experi- 
ence : " When I awake and find it is Sunday morning, I thank 
God that the gates of righteousness will be opened presently 



THE PRAYER-MEETING 87 

and the congregation will assemble to worship God." Let 
this be your rule, and note the result. 

If it be asked how to make the prayer-meeting attractive, 
is there any better way to begin than this? Is not light at- 
tractive? and warmth? and power? Will not those who have 
in them the living germs of the spiritual mind be drawn to hear 
and to make their own your prayer to God and your words of 
Christian teaching, even if there should be nothing more to be 
heard? Though at the beginning no one else should be in the 
spirit, you may be, and you will not be long alone. 

In calling attention to the prayer-meeting in the public 
congregation, do not let your word be always in the form of 
an exhortation to attend. This, if too often repeated, will be 
looked for as a matter of course and will pass unheeded. 
When an announcement of the meeting is made, use whatever 
skill you can command to vary its form. It may be your duty 
to rebuke habitual non-attendance. In such a case imitate 
the apostle's example (i Cor. xi.) and that of the supreme 
Teacher (Rev. ii. 3), and let the reproof be preceded by some 
word of commendation. Be careful never so to lose your 
judgment and temper as to reprove in a fretful spirit. To do 
this is to scold ; and while scolding demoralizes, true Christian 
rebuke is for upbuilding, not for destruction. 

In pastoral calls and casual intercourse with church-members, 
you will probably mention their attendance or failure to attend 
upon the prayer-meeting. It will thus be seen that you heartily 
believe in this means of grace, and will not be content so long 
as those " over whom the Holy Ghost has made you overseers " 
willingly turn away from it. But this you cannot do in the 
absence of a true and hearty personal faith in social worship, 
— a faith that will fan the flame of love in your own heart and 
purify your own conduct from indifference and neglect. 

2. Some physical conditions are worthy of consideration. 
Bodily feeling, whether of enjoyment or of suffering, is unfa- 
vorable to devotion. The sensations must be as little obtrusive 



88 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

as possible. It is not often, indeed, that the prayer-meeting 
is materialized by physical luxury ; though it is possible for the 
music to be too sensuous and the chair to invite repose. The 
difficulty is commonly of the opposite character, — the mind 
diverted by an uncomfortable temperature, or the senses dulled 
into drowsiness by defective ventilation. 

Do not allow the church to economize in gas and oil. By 
all means let the room be well lighted. And whatever there 
may be in its appearance of order, cleanliness, brightness, 
homelikeness, will have not a materializing but a refining 
and devotional effect. It may devolve upon the pastor — 
though it should not — to see that such matters receive due 
attention. 

Nor will it take him long also to learn the advantage of 
having the congregation compact, whether it be large or small, 
instead of thinly scattered over the room. You may find this 
matter, like many others, somewhat hard to manage. But all 
the more does it call for the exercise of patience and skill. 
Various expedients have been recommended. I will suggest 
this: If the people are disposed to choose the farthest seats 
and the obscurest corners, as if merely to look and listen in- 
stead of coming near for cooperation, go to them. Put your- 
self to a little inconvenience if need be. Then, next time, it 
will be with a better grace that you can ask that they put 
themselves to the inconvenience of coming closer to you. 

3. Begin promptly, and close with equal punctuality — except 
that the whole time need not invariably be occupied. May 
we claim the liberty, on the other hand, of transgressing the 
limit when there is extraordinary interest in the meeting? 
Better not. Dismiss the meeting at the appointed hour, but 
give an opportunity for any to remain for another hymn and 
prayer who may be so inclined. Promptness in opening and 
closing is especially necessary in the case of this meeting, amid 
the business and social engagements of the week. 

4. Endeavor to make the meeting preeminently one of 



THE PRAYER-MEETING 89 

Christian communion and service. The motto of the Pleasant 
Sunday Afternoon Society would not be inapt for the prayer- 
meeting: "Brief, Bright, and Brotherly." This fraternal re- 
lation of redeemed souls — symbolized by the Lord's Supper — 
found an early and free development in the meeting for com- 
mon prayer. "These all with one accord continued stead- 
fastly in prayer, with the women, and Mary the mother of 
Jesus, and with His brethren " ; " And they continued stead- 
fastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking 
of bread and the prayers " ; " And they, when they heard it, 
lifted up their voice to God with one accord " ; " And the 
multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul " 
(Acts of the Apostles). Already had these first Christians be- 
come congenial spirits, drawn together about the cross and 
the throne of their Lord. There had been nothing just like it 
in the world; no such comradeship, no such society. Early 
in His ministry Jesus had taught His disciples that prayer 
must be offered in the spirit of love toward men as well as of 
faith toward God (Matt. v. 23, 24; Mark xi. 22-26). But 
that which he gave them later was a "new commandment," 
characteristic of the completed Christian revelation : "Even as 
J have loved you, that ye also love one another." Praying to- 
gether and talking one to another about that kingdom of hea- 
ven whose true nature they had but just learned, their hearts 
had been made glad and consciously strong in Christian friend- 
ship. It was such fellowship in Christ as Paul would have 
the Christians in Rome to realize (Rom. xv. 5-7). Paul felt 
that, as for himself and his fellow-laborers, they must share 
everything with their brethren, even the comfort that God 
gave them in trouble and suffering (2 Cor. i. 1-4). 

Is there not a familiar illustration of this fellow feeling in 
our home life? During the day the family is scattered, — the 
father absent, the mother busy keeping the house, the children 
at school. But when the darkness falls and the lamps are 
lighted they all gather about the table in the cheeriest room of 



90 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the house for the evening meal, for conversation, for reading, 
for the sacrifice upon the home altar. Such a scene appears 
daily in ten thousand Christian homes. The prayer-meeting 
is the gathering together of a church family in the midst of the 
week and at the close of the day, a little household of faith in 
the house of God. It is the church in the fullest realization 
of its family life. 

Therefore is it not a time for warm social greetings, for 
kindly personal inquiries, for nearness of heart one to another? 
Be glad to meet every one, whether habitual attendant or 
stranger, and seek an opportunity, before or after the services, 
to say so. 

But communion will languish unless sustained by mutual 
service. And here also is an opportunity afforded by the 
prayer-meeting. It is too generally true that in the public 
congregation the minister preaches and prays, and the people 
listen (when they do listen). They quietly allow and expect 
him to do all. A certain selfish and superstitious element in 
their nature is not 'oth to put forward a priest to pray/w 
them, instead of a brother and minister to pray with them. 
Or they come to church, if not for this and if not to be enter- 
tained, at any rate to "receive " rather than for that which is 
"more blessed." Is the pastor painfully aware of this en- 
feebling tendency in his congregation? Let him rejoice to 
have in the prayer-meeting one efficient means of correcting 
it. This is the people's meeting ; it may be held without a 
pastor ; in some churches the rule is to have it conducted by 
laymen. Dr. T. L. Cuyler tells us that his prayer-meeting, 
during nearly the whole of his ministry, was intrusted to the 
elders of his church. You will not be likely, however, to find 
willing and efficient substitutes in this ministration, except oc- 
casionally. But with the pastor as leader, it is a ministration 
in which others also must take their part. 

There is an opportunity not only for prayer, but also for 
Christian testimony. The provision for this witness-bearing in 



THE PRAYER-MEETING 91 

religious meetings, for expressing the consciousness of the life 
of God in the soul, is no longer a peculiarity of any one reli- 
gious denomination. Like certain other Christian institutes, 
such as the revival meeting and the systematic employment of 
laymen in preaching and exhortation, it has survived the pelting 
of criticism, both kindly and ill-natured, and is no novelty now 
in evangelical churches. 

To say that such witness-bearing is liable to run into im- 
proprieties and extravagance is far from proving it not to be 
a genuine New Testament practice and an element of power 
in the church. 

Spare no pains to increase the number of those who are 
willing to pray and to offer testimony. Let it sometimes be a 
purely voluntary matter with them. It seems to have been so 
in the New Testament churches. Usually, however, you will 
call on one and another by name to pray, and sometimes to 
speak. If in any case this should seem likely to cause painful 
embarrassment, or even to give offense, gain the person's con- 
sent beforehand. The people will probably not complain if 
you occupy nearly the whole time yourself ; but this is not to 
have a prayer-meeting — it is only to adopt a more or less prof- 
itable substitute for one. Do not imagine there are no others 
besides yourself who can speak to comfort and edification. 
There are those whose unstudied utterances will do more good 
on this or that subject than the very best that you could say. 
Make it plain to them that a few words from a non-official 
source, though brokenly uttered, may be a more real contribu- 
tion to the purpose of the meeting than many a smoother and 
fuller flow of speech. "To the majority of mankind," says 
" The Tongue of Fire," " the great problems, ' What must I do 
to be saved? What is believing? Whereby shall I know that 
I shall inherit glory? Am I, or am I not, deceiving myself? 
How can I overcome this temptation, the sorest that ever 
beset me? How can I grow in grace ? ' and such like, have 
often more light shed upon them by the plair , tatement of an 



92 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

individual as to how divine mercy solved them in his own case 
than by any general explanation." 

Say a word of encouragement after meeting to the more 
timid and inexperienced speakers. On the other hand, you 
may sometimes be called upon to control the indiscreet and 
garrulous talker, and especially the brother whose life does not 
commend him to the confidence of the community. This will 
require both tact and appreciation, both mother-wit and Chris- 
tian love ; but it can be done. It may also be incumbent 
upon you at times to explain what a Christian's word of testi- 
mony is : not a profession of personal goodness, the self-com- 
placent boast of the Pharisee, not an exhortation, not the 
application to one's self of ill-considered Scripture passages, not 
the expression of what one feels ought to be said for the en- 
couragement of others ; but the simple word of personal faith 
and hope in Christ, of the consciousness of the divine presence, 
of determination in the power of God for the future, of con- 
fession of faults one to another, to be followed by prayer one 
for another that we may be healed. 

Nor does the obligation of Christian testimony require that 
one should attempt to tell everything. Even we may hear 
words in the interior life not lawful to utter. There is some- 
thing in human affection too sacredly personal to admit of 
publication. Similarly the soul alone with the Father may 
have spiritual experiences—sorrows, doubts, crosses, struggles, 
consolations, perplexities, hopes, communings— which it would 
not know how, and need not desire, to tell. " And I will give 
him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, 
which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it" (Rev. ii. 17). 
Christian testimony is not garrulity, nor is it indelicacy of soul. 

And what if the tongue should trip and stammer, or even 
sometimes misrepresent the mind and feeling within? It is 
no other infirmity, though greater perhaps, than that of the 
most mature and experienced preacher in prayer and preaching. 

What is a church? Let the answer be given again and 



THE PRAYER-MEETING 93 

again, till it becomes even more familiar and unquestionable 
in practice than in definition : " Not a social club, nor an 
sesthetic confectioner's, nor an intellectual prize-ring, nor a 
mutual admiration society, nor a spiritual hammock; but a 
workshop in which you are a worker ; an army in which you 
are a soldier ; a body of which you are a member ; a family 
in which the old are not to be arrogant, nor the young pre- 
sumptuous, but each serving the other." 

Remember what a mighty instrument the prayer-meeting is 
in a revival, before and after and during the special services. 
It is for service, and not simply toward fellow-believers, but 
also toward " them that are without," to bring them to Christ. 
" Now Peter and John were going up into the temple at the 
hour of prayer, being the ninth hour" (Acts hi. i) ; and that 
hour of prayer proved to be also a time of beneficent work, 
for at the Gate Beautiful a lame man was lying, whom they 
healed of his infirmity. Many a soul has found healing, in the 
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the ministration of 
those, both ministers and laymen, who went "up into the 
temple at the hour of prayer." 

5. Need I say that this intercommunion of Christian souls 
must not degenerate into mere social chit-chat, nor the services 
become so businesslike as to lose the spirit of devotion? The 
prayer-meeting is utterly unworthy of its name, a travesty of 
divine worship, unless it be devotional. 

The complaint is sometimes made, " That brother, with his 
wearisome talk, his slow singing, his long, stereotyped prayer, 
will kill the meeting." It may be ; but it may also be that 
that other brother, the leader, with his mechanical chopping 
up of the exercises into little bits, his obtrusion of himself with 
directions and ejaculations into even the most sacred moments 
of prayer, his continual expression of shallow emotion, his 
pragmatic push and stir and management, as if here were some- 
thing that could be done by might and by power,— it may be 
that this too is to " despise prophesyings " and to " quench the 



94 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Spirit." It is well that there should be a lively meeting, but 
with what kind of life? Let the stream run bright and musi- 
cal, but not recklessly at the expense of depth. Is your 
prayer-meeting such as may be expected to result in deep 
convictions of sin, deep searchings of heart, deep inspiration 
and joy in the Christain life? It is well that we should be 
companionable toward the human presence, but not so as to 
become forgetful or irreverent toward the divine. It is well 
to exercise common sense and good management everywhere, 
but the spirit of devotion cannot be forced or mechanically 
directed and controlled. 

6. One more suggestion. Observe the principle of unity in 
variety. All churches have prescribed with more or less pre- 
cision the order and character of public worship. Has it not 
been a true Christian instinct that has prevented such regula- 
tion of the prayer-meeting? Here the customary mode of 
procedure is supposed to be quite flexible ; the largest liberty 
is allowed, because demanded by the prayer-meeting idea. 
Not that there should be eccentricity or disorder; not that 
change and diversity should be regarded as in themselves en- 
richment. Diversity is preferable to monotony only as a sign 
and an excitant of life. But a meeting for common prayer 
and thanksgiving, the family gathering of the church, which 
arose at the beginning among the disciples and inspired apostles 
of Christ somewhat as the celebration of the day of the resur- 
rection arose, — because it had to be, — can easily make good 
its plea for the minimum amount of restraint upon its spirit of 
freedom, originality, and varied movement. 

There is one respect, indeed, in which a greater degree of 
regularity than seems to be commonly observed would be an 
improvement, and that is in the selection of topics from week 
to week. For this concerns the teaching element, and instruc- 
tion is better given systematically. Why not select a suitable 
series of topics, — say for the next two or three months? Con- 
sider what the needs of this and that class of your church- 



THE PRAYER-MEETING 95 

members, in the development of their religious life, seem to 
require. Or what do the changing outward circumstances of 
the church make appropriate, — the beginning and the close of 
the natural or the ecclesiastical year, the commonly observed 
Christian festivals, the presentation of benevolent causes, the 
various undertakings of the church, any religiously instructive 
current events in the community? 

Or you may find it beneficial to keep some one general sub- 
ject before the congregation for several successive occasions. 
Suppose, for illustration, it should be the subject of " Christian 
Earnestness." Take as your Scripture lesson i Corinthians 
ix. 19-27. Each week, for a month, present some one aspect 
of the general theme. Would not this in many instances make 
a deeper and more permanent impression than four distinct 
weekly topics? 

Or it might serve a good purpose to go through some whole 
book of the Bible, selecting here and there the most suitable 
passages, — taking care also not to become too expository, but 
to give the prominent place always to experiential and practi- 
cal topics. Note the method pursued in the selection of the 
yearly series of Sunday-school lessons by the International 
Committee ; it may prove suggestive. 

Look ahead ; have a plan ; remember one of your titles as 
a minister of Christ is builder (1 Cor. iii. 9-15). But always 
hold even your most carefully prepared plan subject to altera- 
tion or reversal. Be glad to have it rendered useless at any 
time by the occurrence of new and unexpected opportunities. 
Is there some truth not in your " scheme " that has got pos- 
session of people's minds, or is there some manifest token of 
divine power among them? Let that give direction to the 
services. 

I will make a few suggestions more specifically upon the 
sources of variety. 

(1 ) Emphasize the reading of the Scriptures. Give a number 
of passages on some one subject, so arranged as to develop it 



96 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

in an orderly and progressive manner, with pertinent com- 
ments. Other persons may take part in the reading, and, if 
desirable, in the commenting also. Distribute Bibles and slips 
of paper with the selected passages written on them. When 
you call for the reading, encourage questions and remarks. 

(2) Emphasize the hymns. Call attention now and then to 
the sentiment, or to interesting circumstances connected with 
their authorship. Combine with the singing the reading of 
psalms and of devotional passages from the New Testa- 
ment. 

(3) Emphasize meditation. Take a hint from the Society of 
Friends, who wait in prayerful silence of heart and lips for the 
Spirit's voice. " With absolutely nothing to draw our minds 
from worship," says one of them, "we wait reverently upon 
God, each one for himself, the hungry seeking bread and the 
thirsty the water of life, and each receives the refreshment 
his soul needs." Have moments of silent prayer. Let hymns, 
Scripture passages, remarks, all be in the direction of heart- 
searching (not of emotions but of motives), retrospect, resolves 
for the future, patient waiting for God. 

(4) Emphasize the spoken word. Martin Luther declared 
that " the Christian congregation should never assemble, ex- 
cept the Word of God be preached." It was an extreme 
statement, to which he was driven by the corruption and dearth 
of preaching in the Roman Church. Let us sometimes as- 
semble and agree together touching one thing to ask it of our 
Father in heaven, though not a word of teaching or exhorta- 
tion be delivered. Nevertheless, we need hardly be reminded 
that usually such a word has a place in the prayer-meeting. 
Sometimes let it be made very prominent. Even if it should 
occupy nearly as much time as in the regular preaching ser- 
vice, no matter. 

Your talk may be given at the beginning ; or at the close, — 
a summing up of the significance of hymns, prayers, and testi- 
mony ; or now and then throughout the exercises. 



THE PRAYER-MEETING 97 

(5) Emphasize the prayers. Notify the congregation, and 
ask any who will to hand in requests for prayer ; or call for 
them on the occasion. 

Such suggestions might easily be multiplied. Let these 
suffice to show that, while some congregations doubtless are 
capable of greater variation in their prayer services than are 
others, in none is there any good reason for sameness or 
formality. Instead of being at a loss for variety, the interested 
and earnest minister will feel the lack of opportunity. 

It is evident also that here is no labor-saving expedient, 
but rather a labor-demanding ideal ; and yet an ideal whose 
pursuit will become natural and inspiring in proportion to the 
amount of energy, intellectual, social, and spiritual, that we 
are expending upon it. Whereas indolence, here as elsewhere, 
will keep its congenial rut. 

But in this variety there will be the unity of a single per- 
vading aim; many incidents and forms, but one ground- 
thought, one spirit, one law. Not merely that there should 
be some specific truth or purpose to strike the key-note of 
hymn and prayer and spoken word in each meeting, but al- 
ways the ultimate purpose is communion with the living God. 
To draw near to God — that is our object. To be in the light 
and glory of our Lord ; to have the baptism of the Spirit on 
our hearts ; to have the intruding annoyances and cares of life 
swept away, and its great sorrows that must abide illumined 
with light from heaven ; to have the heart made strong and 
triumphant in the sense of forgiveness and the knowledge of 
its Redeemer ; the tranquil mind, " the silent heaven of love," 
—it is for no lower good than this, and it can be for no 
higher, that we wait upon the Lord in His house together. 
And this only can supremely qualify us for service. " When 
they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were 
gathered together; and they were all filled with the Holy 
Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. . . . 
And with great power gave the apostles their witness of the 



98 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon 
them all" (Acts iv. 31, 23)- 

Let us not go off and seek in many places for that secret of 
power that can be found only in our own hearts before God. 
" The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart." In 
all consultations and inquiries in quest of better plans and 
more successful methods, let us not miss the word of heavenly 
wisdom that is spoken, if we will but listen, to us all. How 
may we make the prayer-meeting attractive and profitable? 
Let it become more and more a Christian prayer-meeting, in 
the fellowship of the Spirit, a real and united seeking after 
God, a grateful and united rejoicing in His presence. 

Read " The Prayer-Meeting and its Improvement," by L. O. Thomp- 
son. 



Part Second 
THE MINISTRY OF PREACHING 



SCHEME 
I. The Scripture Germ. 
II. The Development of the Germ. 
i. Processes of Development. 
(i) Exposition. 

(2) Argument. 

(3) Description. 

(4) Illustration. 

(5) Persuasion. 

2. Forms of Development. 

(1) The Plan. 

(a) The Proposition. 
(<5) The Divisions. 

(2) The Fulfilment of the Plan, 
(a) The Amplification. 

(i>) The Introduction. 

(c) The Conclusion. 

(d) Literary Form. 
III. The Spirit of the Sermon. 

IV. Themes and Occasions of Preaching. 

1. Order— Repetition— Some Special Occasions. 

2. Social Themes. 

3. The Preacher before the Children. 

4. The Preacher as an Evangelist. 
V. The Preaching Itself. 

1. The Preparation of the Sermon with Reference to 

its Delivery. 

2. Personal Preparation. 

3. The Twofold Action in Speech. 

4. The Action of the Soul— on Subject, Audience, Ob- 

ject. 

5. Extemporaneous Preaching— in the Act. 



99 



Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of un- 
clean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips : for mine 
eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the sera- 
phim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with 
the tongs from off the altar : and he touched my mouth with it, and said, 
Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy 
sin purged. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I 
send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I ; send me.— Isa. 
vi. 5-8. 

And he said, The God of our fathers hath appointed thee to know His 
will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice from His mouth. 
For thou shalt be a witness for Him unto all men of what thou hast seen 
and heard. — Acts xxii. 14, 15. 

And the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and 
declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and 
was manifested unto us. — I John i. 2. 



100 



LECTURE I 

THE SCRIPTURE GERM — USE, CHOICE 

IN the preparation of a sermon we have somewhat to begin 
with, — a passage of Scripture. A most significant peculi- 
arity of the text, as compared with the other parts of the ser- 
mon, is that it is not of our own making. So the initial life 
and substance of the whole discourse is provided for us. No 
man has ever numbered the passages in the Bible appropriate 
to Christian preaching. Which shall we choose for any partic- 
ular occasion? To make such a choice, and this only, is our 
province ; selection, not creation. 

In fact, even this may be done for us, and with a distinct 
advantage. To preach from a text by request, or from a pre- 
scribed text,— during a week of prayer, for example, — may 
lead us into some neglected field that will prove unexpectedly 
fresh and fruitful. Ordinarily, however, the responsibility of 
selection is our own. 

Sometimes, indeed, the preacher begins with a theme and 
then looks for a text that contains it ; oftener, perhaps, he 
begins with a text and looks for the theme that it contains. 
But whichever may be first in the order of time, the text 
evidently has precedence in the order of thought. It is the 
Scripture germ out of which the organism of discourse arises. 
It must be in it all, interpenetrative, as the tea-leaves are in 
the cup of tea, as the letters of the alphabet are in the book, 
as the seed is in the full-grown plant. 
101 



102 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Now is this an artificial or a natural requirement? Is the 
custom of taking texts to be regarded as in any sense a puerility 
of the pulpit? Some persons seem to think so. I have heard 
an intelligent layman remark : " The text is a mere formality ; 
what you want is a theme." This opinion, like many others 
that display the badge of novelty, is very old — common 
enough, we are told, among the preachers of Alexandria and 
Antioch centuries ago. If it be true as well as old, let this 
formality of texts, however prevalent, be thrown aside. The 
last place in the world for the unthinking and the unreal is 
the Christian pulpit. 

To the congregation in general the custom is by no means 
objectionable. On the contrary, it interests them. The first 
question likely to be asked about a sermon is " What was the 
text? " And often the part of the sermon longest and best 
remembered is the one great word of Scripture with which it 
began. If, then, the votes of the people should be taken as 
decisive of the matter, there can be little doubt of the result. 
But we must see further. 

Let us consider : 

I. The Use of Texts. And this as to its principle and its 
advantages. 

i . The principle of this time-honored custom is a sufficient 
reason for its perpetuation, for it is no other than that the text 
is the subject itself. The theme of every sermon is Christian 
truth as revealed in the Scriptures. There is no exception in 
an evangelical pulpit. What we are sent to preach is not 
simply truth upon this or that topic,— the righteousness and 
the mercy of God, repentance, faith, forgiveness, holiness, 
judgment,— but the truth upon these topics "as truth is in 
Jesus," and as it was taught by Him and by His chosen wit- 
nesses. Why, then, should we not take a text? How natu- 
rally and inevitably did the custom originate! There is such 
a superstition as bibliolatry, but it is a mistake to suppose that 
we have found it here. 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM -USE, CHOICE 103 

The college professor will frequently announce a chapter or 
a section of his text-book as the basis of his lecture. Suppose 
there were one text-book of unimpeachable authority and com- 
prehensive of all the known principles of the subject; would 
not his themes uniformly be some portion of that book? Or, 
to take a case more similar to that of the preacher, no one 
asks why the Sunday-school teacher always chooses his lesson 
from the Bible. It is his very office to teach those Bible les- 
sons. And what is the preacher but a Sunday-school teacher, 
with a larger and more mixed class of scholars? 

Quite in accordance with this idea of the sermon as an 
exposition of some truth of revelation, we find that the preach- 
ing of the first Christian centuries, though marred by many 
digressions, was predominantly exegetical. The sermons of 
the church fathers were for the most part "homilies," not 
unlike the ordinary prayer-meeting talk in our churches. 
Whole books were expounded in order by these primitive 
preachers to their congregations. Chrysostom, the noblest 
figure of them all, is said to have gone through the entire Bible 
in this way. A similar record has come down to us of Origen, 
who has received the somewhat doubtful title of " the father 
of Christian preaching." Not without many errors and weak- 
nesses were these fathers of the church; but it was by no 
means an error or a weakness that would have caused them 
surprise, as at an unmeaning question, if it had been asked 
them, "Why do you take a text? " 

In the pulpit of to-day short texts — a verse, a clause — have 
to a large extent superseded the longer ones of the early Chris- 
tain centuries ; but the principle is the same. And concerning 
this prevalence of short texts in the modern pulpit two things 
may be said: (i) there is deeper insight into the meaning of 
Scripture and greater elaborateness in treating it than in those 
earlier times, and hence not so large a portion can be ex- 
pounded within a given time limit ; and (2) there is still a great 
deal of what may be called by way of distinction expository 



104 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

preaching, — " the ennobled continuation of the homily of the 
ancient church." 

The prophets and apostles — though not simply the great 
preachers of their times, but themselves authors of sacred 
Scripture and witnesses of the kingdom of truth for all times 
— put their preaching into closest relations with preceding 
revelations of God's will. The prophet did not ignore the 
Law ; he preached it. The heart of the psalmist, in like manner, 
thrilled with enthusiastic love for the Law as the expression of 
the righteous will of God. And how constantly are the Old 
Testament words on the lips of the apostles of our Lord! 
They use these Scriptures to make men wise unto salvation 
through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The scores of quota- 
tions, direct and indirect, from the Old Testament in the 
apostolic epistles furnish a suggestive chapter in the history of 
" the continuity of Christian thought." 

Above all, we see Him who was the incarnate Word not 
only giving His new and perfect revelation of the Father, but 
honoring and interpreting the Scriptures. Indeed, Himself 
and His whole life, inasmuch as they perfectly fulfilled the law 
and the prophets, were likewise the final and full interpretation 
thereof; for the only complete interpretation is fulfilment. 
But in His preaching specifically Jesus explained and applied 
the Scriptures. Speaking always with authority, Himself the 
Wisdom of God, calmly declaring at the beginning of His 
ministry, " Ye have heard that it was said to those of old time 
. . . but I say unto you," — Jesus was nevertheless an ex- 
pounder of the Old Testament : " This is the law and the 
prophets " ; " And beginning from Moses and from all the 
prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things 
concerning Himself " ; " To-day hath this Scripture been ful- 
filled in your ears." Jesus must preach Himself, and one way 
of doing so was to show, from the words of prophets in whom 
the Spirit spoke beforehand of His sufferings and of the glory 
that should follow, how the Scriptures bore witness of Him. 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM-USE, CHOICE 105 

In the last of the quotations just made we have gone back 
from the Church to the Synagogue. When Jesus of Nazareth 
spoke upon the Scripture lesson in the synagogue of his town, 
it was nothing unusual that He did. An expository address 
after the reading was the custom of the time. It was not the 
fact but the character of our Lord's exposition that caused 
astonishment. 

Taking texts, then, is confessedly an old custom ; the prin- 
ciple of it has been illustrated from the beginning of the Gospel 
until now. But to be old may mean to be indispensable. 
Certainly it does not always mean to be antiquated, else the 
sun in the heavens, and the morning's dawn, which always 
" comes up the old bright way," with the fruitful earth beneath, 
and the beating heart of man, would all be out of date. 

The ancient offices of the scribe in the synagogue (Acts xv. 
21), and the prophet coming before the people wherever he 
can find them with a message from God, are combined and 
perpetuated in the Christian ministry. The one Priest of the 
new covenant has passed into the heavens, but men may still 
be prophets and scribes of the church of God. Between the 
word of exposition and the prophetic word in the Christian 
pulpit there is no conflict. On the contrary, each confirms the 
other. But it is with the former only that we are now con- 
cerned. We are scribes; it is our business to know and to 
teach the Scriptures. Not, indeed, as the scribes were prone to 
do in the time of Christ, abusing their office ; not sticking in the 
letter and losing religion in a fanciful and false exegesis ; but as 
scribes instructed unto the kingdom of heaven. There has 
been committed unto us the key of knowledge, that we may 
both go in ourselves and open the door to all who are willing 
to enter. 

2. The advantages in the use of texts are such as the fol- 
lowing : 

(i) It furnishes an intellectual stimulus. The reading of 
suggestive passages in some suitable book has been recom- 



106 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

mended as an expedient for wakening a dull mind to its work 
in original composition. A literary friend once asked Wash- 
ington Irving if he ever found relief from mental depression 
and a stimulus to work in this way. " Often," he answered ; 
" and none are more effective with me for this service than 
the sacred writers. I think I have waked a good many sleep- 
ing fancies by the reading of a chapter in Isaiah." For the 
preacher the reading and study of the text is often enough. 
Sluggish indeed must that mind be that is not stirred by the 
great truths that strive for expression in the numberless forms 
and associations of Bible language,— in history, poetry, pre- 
cept, argument, promise, threatening, parable, prophecy. For 
these men of inspiration put both intellect and heart, their whole 
selves, into what they have to say. Not only do they hold 
possession of the most momentous and precious truth, but 
they are constrained to deliver it; it is "the burden of the 
Lord." Hence in an intellectual as well as in a far deeper 
sense their words are words of life, communicative, contagious, 
inspiring. 

Take even the very familiar passages. Let any preacher 
say whether his mind is not quickened and interested on the 
subject of God's care of His children by reading the words, 
" It is vain for you that ye rise up early, and so late take rest, 
and eat the bread of toil : for so He giveth unto His beloved 
sleep [margin, in sleep] " (Ps. cxxvii. 2) ; on the nature of true 
religion by 1 Corinthians iv. 20 : " For the kingdom of God is 
not in word, but in power " ; on love to our neighbor by the 
parable of the good Samaritan ; on life and immortality by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

{2) It is spiritually helpful. That is but feeble preaching 
which is not expressive of a present spiritual life and experience 
in the preacher himself. Though he should be at his best in- 
tellectually and emotionally, this is not sufficient. He must 
communicate in the sermon a life which is being communi- 
cated to him. And how often is this life of God felt in all its 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM-USE, CHOICE 107 

power during prayerful meditation on some word of Holy 
Writ! The heart is thereby drawn to God in reverence, faith, 
and love; it is led into the holy of holies where His glory 
appears. So the minister is himself sanctified by the word 
which he is preparing to minister for the sanctification of others. 

I would fain hope that the experience which Dr. Stalker 
has so fitly expressed may often be your own : 

"When we are shut in alone, and, the spirit having been 
silenced and collected by prayer, the mind gets slowly down 
into the heart of a text like a bee in a flower, it is like heaven 
upon earth ; it is as if the soul were bathing itself in morning 
dews ; the dust and fret are washed off, and the noises recede 
into the distance ; peace comes ; we move aloft in another 
world, — the world of ideas and realities ; the mind mounts joy- 
fully from one height to another; it sees the common world 
far beneath, yet clearly, in its true meaning and size and re- 
lations to other worlds. And then one comes down on Sab- 
bath to speak to the people, calm, strong, and clear, like Moses 
from the mount, and with a true divine message." 

(3) It is to both preacher and congregation a, perpetual re- 
minder of the commission of a Christian minister. As Christ, 
in serving the hungry people in the wilderness, "gave the 
loaves to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitude," so 
it is from Him that His apostles now receive the bread of 
truth which, through their ministration, is given to the people. 
To lose the consciousness of these relations in which they 
stand as ministers of Christ is to be untrue, to incur the risk 
of becoming mere essayists or lecturers instead of preachers 
of the Word. To be distinctly conscious of these relations is 
to have one's speech clothed with a power that nothing else 
can give. It will loose the tongue of the dumb. It will make 
the humblest preacher even like his Master, " a prophet mighty 
in deed and word before God and all the people." " To be 
full of one's subject and to speak without fear " has been given 
as a description of eloquence. To feel oneself to be speaking 



108 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

for God, standing before the people as His representative, 
with no selfish end to accomplish, possessed of His Word, 
tremulous with awe in His presence, fearing nothing but to 
displease Him, burdened only with an infinite debt of love, — 
this will give to men who on any other subject would be diffi- 
dent and slow of speech the tender touches and the inimitable 
boldness of something more than eloquence. And the people 
will listen to such a speaker as to a man sent forth from God 
to declare His will. The spirit of confidence and of com- 
mand, the tone of authority in which he speaks, will not be 
offensive to them, but welcome and impressive. " Ye received 
me," says Paul to the Galatians, " as an angel of God, even as 
Jesus Christ." 

Manifestly the custom of preaching directly from words of 
Scripture will tend to inspire and maintain this consciousness. 
In the early days of Methodism the people stood to hear the 
text announced. It was a reverent and beautiful observance 
whose meaning cannot be mistaken. They felt, preacher and 
congregation, " Here is a message from God, about to be read 
and expounded by His servant." 

(4) It is promotive of variety in preaching. Is there any 
other public speaker that addresses the same audience as fre- 
quently as does the preacher? Compare him in this respect 
with the political orator, the popular lecturer, the college pro- 
fessor. The difference is manifest. Nor is it owing simply 
to the frequency of his addresses that he must have new themes 
continually, but also because of the vast number and variety 
of needs in his congregation. The heart of man, — its hopes, 
fears, joys, possibilities, sorrows, sins, — who can know it? who 
can minister to it as he would? Surely here is an incessant 
demand on the inventive faculties. But there is also a divine 
provision for this necessity. See our themes provided for us 
in the Book which represents the ages of revelation, and, grow- 
ing richer and more perfect, culminates in the Cross of Christ, 
adapted to all the wants and aspirations of the human soul, 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM-USE, CHOICE 109 

tens of thousands of passages heralding the common salvation 
in forms and aspects innumerable. The last evil which a 
biblical pulpit need apprehend is a dearth of apposite and 
fruitful subjects of discourse. 

The beginner in the ministry sometimes fears that after a 
few months he will have nothing to preach ; but at the end of 
four or of forty years he may leave his charge with more 
" texts for preaching " in his note-book than on the first day 
of his pastoral term. 

II. The Choice of Texts. 

Many stumble at this point— stumble on the threshold of 
the sermon. Not that the art of choosing texts is difficult, for 
no extraordinary talents are required ; but here, as in many em- 
ployments, we may blunder for years from not having the right 
standard set before us at the beginning ; or, it may be, for lack 
of a few directions which when plainly stated seem self-evident. 

The importance of a thoroughly good choice is obvious. I 
cannot, indeed, encourage the idea that this involves almost 
everything. Dr. Shedd, in " Homiletics and Pastoral The- 
ology" (p. 175), says: "As in secular oratory the selection of 
a subject is either vital or fatal to the whole performance, so 
in sacred oratory the success of the preacher depends entirely 
upon the fitness of his choice of a text. The text is his sub- 
ject ; it is the germ of the whole discourse. Provided, there- 
fore, he has found an apt and excellent one, he has found his 
sermon substantially." The first and the last sentence of this 
passage seem to me a strange exaggeration. There is a sense 
in which the whole plant is in the germ, but the farmer has 
much more to do and much more risk to run after getting 
possession of his seed-wheat than before. 

Appropriateness in a text is the adaptation of a perfect in- 
strument to its end ; it is good seed-wheat with reference to a 
wheat harvest; while the lack of appropriateness may be a 
source of weakness and failure. 

What, then, are some of the suggestions to be offered on 



110 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

this subject? I will number them in a single series, and in- 
dicate at the same time certain principles of division. 

i. As to its Source, the text should be 

( i ) A genuine passage of Scripture. An interpolation is no 
more a part of the Bible than if the words occurred in any- 
other writing. You would not for any consideration add a 
statement of your own to a book of the Bible and have it 
published as part of the original ; and if this should occur ac- 
cidentally you would deplore the accident and would be very 
careful to avoid it thereafter. But to preach from any other 
than a genuine passage is not only preaching from substituted 
or inserted words, but in a measure giving sanction to the in- 
terpolation. 

If Wesley were now in the flesh he would doubtless preach 
Trinitarian doctrine ; but he would not take as the text of a ser- 
mon on the Trinity i John v. 7 (A. V.), as he did a hundred years 
ago. Neither would Dr. Chalmers be likely now to preach, 
as he did, a sermon on the " Universality of the Gospel Offer " 
from the words " Good will toward men " (Luke ii. 14). Nor 
would Bishop Simpson probably now include the telling ex- 
position of the little phrase "with joy" in his famous sermon 
on the " Christian Ministry " (from Acts xx. 24). 

(2) It should be a correctly translated passage. No transla- 
tion is perfect. The transference of thought and emotion from 
any language to any other is necessarily attended with certain 
losses, just as is the substitution of written for spoken language. 
But a mistranslation conveys a positively untrue meaning to 
the reader's mind. Hence, like an interpolation, it is no part 
of the real book. Before it can be employed as a text the 
correct translation must be given. 

In regard to both the genuineness and the correct transla- 
tion of passages, happily we have an authority that is both 
accessible and trustworthy in the Revised Version. 

(3) Note the obvious distinction between the words of the 
Bible itself and the sentiments of its historical characters. Is it 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM— USE, CHOICE 111 

the Book of God? For this very reason in no other book are 
the moral depths of the soul so opened up in human speech. 
For God would make us acquainted with one another and 
thus also reveal us to ourselves. So the word we read may 
be a word of unspeakable wickedness (" What are ye willing to 
give me, and I will deliver Him unto you? " — Matt. xxvi. 15) ; 
or of wonder (" What then shall this child be? "—Luke i. 66) ; 
or of keenest sorrow (" Would God I had died for thee, O 
Absalom, my son, my son! " — 2 Sam. xviii. $5) ; or of Christian 
confession ("Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" 
—Matt. xvi. 16); of anger, fear, religious inquiry, prayer, 
praise, hope, faith, resignation. All these are recorded for 
our instruction ; they represent the truth in many interesting 
and thrilling aspects; out of them all, as Scripture texts, we 
may preach to the people. But let us not carelessly ascribe 
the language of any speaker in the Bible to the sacred historian 
who records it. 

Moreover, we are not to assume that the words of even the 
most upright or gifted or saintly men of the Bible were always 
perfectly wise and good. These men had like infirmities with 
ourselves ; they were not the first-born sons of light. I once 
heard a sermon on the death of King David (1 Kings ii. 1-10), 
in which the preacher was evidently embarrassed by the dying 
charge of the great king, which he laid upon Solomon, his suc- 
cessor, that he should not let the head of the aged Joab " go 
down to the grave in peace." Such a man as David,— so the 
preacher assumed,— occupying the position which he occupied 
in the church of God, could hardly make a mistake or indulge 
a wrong feeling at the close of his life. Somehow it must have 
been right for him to deliver this cruel and bloody charge. 
Was David, then, infallible in judgment and perfect in right- 
eousness and love? Does the Bible say that his dying utter- 
ances were inspired of God? Or shall it be regarded as 
altogether reasonable that in the Bible we should meet again 
and again with the miracle of a perfect life? 



112 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

One Life has been lived on earth whose every word and 
deed was an unadulterated word of God ; but of no other can 
this be said. Let the words and deeds of all others be judged 
by the light of Christ. Use them in the pulpit, not for what 
you would fain have them to be, but for what they are. 

(4) Texts should be chosen with a certain proportionateness 
from the various books of the Bible. For " every Scripture 
inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for 
correction, for instruction which is in righteousness : that the 
man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every 
good work." Therefore every Scripture should be preached ; 
and to find our subjects in the New Testament to the neglect 
of the Old, or in the historical, the doctrinal, the devotional, 
the prophetic parts of the Bible to the neglect of others, is 
almost certainly to give a partial, one-sided course of teaching. 
Nevertheless, all portions are not equally profitable ; and hence 
some are to be preached in larger measure than others. Each 
had its primary and special significance to the people to whom 
it was originally given, and has its ultimate significance for us ; 
and all are combined in a wonderful unity. But just as in the 
unity of the body some organs are more serviceable than 
others, so in the Scriptures. No one would wish to lose the 
little finger of his left hand, but all would prefer this to the 
loss of an eye. Why should you not preach from Leviticus? 
But why should you not also preach much oftener from the 
Psalms and the Gospel according to John? 

As to the relative prominence of the two Testaments in the 
pulpit I can hardly imagine a Christian preacher hesitating. 
Indeed, we dare not preach the truth merely as it appears in 
the Old Testament ; for have we not known that same truth in 
the light of a fuller revelation? A traveler will not describe a 
country merely as it appears under the stars when he has also 
seen it in the sunlight. The Gospels and the Epistles complete 
and fulfil the Law and the Prophets. 

Nevertheless completion is not substitution. We shall 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM — USE, CHOICE 113 

never outlive our need of the Old Testament, in the pulpit or 
elsewhere. Let us teach its facts and truths under the light 
of the Gospel. And be it also remembered that this is not to 
read the New Testament into the Old,— not to import a mean- 
ing from our familiar knowledge of the evangel of Jesus into 
the words of psalmist and prophet and into the institutions and 
events of an earlier dispensation. For example, there are 
many types in the Old Testament, and the whole ministration 
of truth to Israel had its preliminary, anticipative, prophetic 
aspect; but in our typology we must not allegorize above 
what is written. Isaiah had his glorious visions of God and 
Christ ; but John the Baptist was greater than Isaiah ; and he 
that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. 
Some one has said of a so-called exposition by Guthrie, " The 
Gospel in Ezekiel," that Dr. Guthrie seemed to think that 
Ezekiel " had signed the confession of faith." Of topsy-turvy 
exegesis there has been quite enough. It is a poor way of 
understanding the roots of a tree to fancy them the same as 
the trunk and the branches. 

2. As to Number and Length. 

(5) There are sometimes good reasons for taking more than 
one text for the same sermon. It may be your purpose to 
show two important and striking aspects of a subject that are 
not given in any single passage. You propose, e.g., to preach 
on " The Doing of Good Works before our Fellow-men " ; and 
choosing as your two texts Matthew v. 16 and Matthew vi. 3, 
you go on to show the right and the wrong spirit in relation 
to such deeds,— the two texts being complementary to each 
other and together presenting the complete truth. Or you 
take the apostle's paradox in Galatians vi. 2, 5, and show the 
sense in which we may, and that in which we may not, bear 
the burdens of others. Dr. T. L. Cuyler adds another pas- 
sage, "Cast thy burden upon the Lord" (Ps. Iv. 22), and 
preaches from this triplet of texts. One of Spurgeon's ser- 
mons, entitled " A Serious Contrast," is from the two passages, 



114 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

" He that covereth his sins shall not prosper " and " Thou 
hast covered all their sins." The opening sentence shows the 
drift of the discourse : " In these two texts we have man's 
covering, which is worthless and culpable, and God's co-iering, 
which is profitable and worthy of all acceptation." 

Or the two aspects of the subject may be one general and 
the other specific ; e.g., " Honor all men. . . . Honor the 
king" (i Pet. ii. 17). 

Again, it may be your purpose to set forth some experience 
or some truth in the successive stages of its development. 
The two passages, Matthew xix. 27 and Acts v. 41, are an 
appropriate pair of texts for a discourse on " Christian Progress 
from Self-seeking to Self-devotion." The Rev. John Ker has a 
sermon entitled " Moses and Stephen, the Old Testament and 
the New," from Exodus xxxiv. 30 and Acts vi. 15. His ob- 
ject is, by means of two incidents which he regards as typical, 
to point out the progress in -the unfolding of spiritual truth, 
from the giving of the Law to the preaching of the Gospel. 

The fact that we regularly read two lessons in our Sunday 
morning services, one from the Old Testament and the other 
from the New, is not without suggestiveness in this connection. 

Sometimes several texts are employed. Dr. Joseph Parker, 
in his sermon on "Judas Iscariot," announces, one after an- 
other, the various passages relating to the subject, and by a 
skilful exposition of each presents his completed picture of the 
betrayer of Jesus. Not long since I heard what the preacher 
modestly called " a Bible reading " on the Lord's Supper, in 
which a similar method was followed. 

Is it necessary to add that the occasions for the use of more 
than one text are not likely to be frequent ; or that to combine 
two or more texts in the hope of giving weight to the sermon, 
somewhat as a writer may quote numerous mottoes for each 
chapter of his book, is a vain and fruitless fancy? 

The unwisdom of choosing two texts under the appearance 
of one, is still more evident. In other words, the text must 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM- USE, CHOICE 115 

have unity. E.g., to preach from Romans xii. 12 would be to 
take three texts and to preach three sermons under the guise 
of one, unless we should be able to make such a generaliza- 
tion as would unitize these separate passages under a higher 
truth. 

(6) The length of texts will vary with their character and 
their mode of treatment. The ninth chapter of the Gospel of 
John is a perfect unity and is not too long for a text, while 
there are single verses in it from which whole series of sermons 
might be preached. 

There is a peculiar force, the power of truth concentrated 
and compacted, in short, intense texts. They can also be 
easily repeated by the preacher and easily remembered by the 
hearer. But the longer text will probably embrace a still 
greater amount of the substance of holy Scripture. It will 
require more exposition ; and the more of " God's Word writ- 
ten " we can bring into immediate contact with souls, the 
better. The tendency of young preachers is, I think, to an- 
nounce for texts as few words as possible ; with increasing age 
and experience they rather desire as many as possible. They 
come to see that to develop only the salient points of com- 
paratively long passages— narratives, arguments, prayers, par- 
ables—is a difficult, an interesting, and a profitable kind of 
preaching. 

Note also the familiar short texts that would be revivified 
for pulpit use by simply including a few preceding or following 
words that somehow are habitually overlooked. Who preaches, 
e.g., from the whole of Galatians vi. 14? There is no lack of 
sermons on 1 Corinthians xvi. 22, but I know of only one (by 
Dr. Maclaren) entitled " Anathema and Grace," and including 
in its text verses 21-24. Many preachers choose the text 
"God is love;" but very few take the whole verse in which 
these glorious words are given as the reason for a most signifi- 
cant fact of human experience, — " He that loveth not knoweth 
not God; for God is love" (1 John iv. 8). (Note also verse 



116 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

1 6.) Another example: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" (Acts xvi. 31). 

It is a custom with some ministers, in preaching from a 
narrative, to announce the last verse only. Such a text is 
allowable only in case of its being what has been called an 
" epitome text," — that is to say, a passage containing the gist 
and substance of the whole general subject. E.g., in preach- 
ing on " The Healing of the Leper" (Matt. viii. 2-4) why should 
we read as the text simply verse 4? Not that, but the whole 
story, is our theme. On the other hand, in preaching on " The 
Healing of the Syrophenician Woman's Daughter " (Matt. xv. 
21-28) we might announce the twenty-eighth verse as the 
text, because these words may be regarded as epitomizing the 
facts and teachings of the miracle. Even in this instance, 
however, it would probably be better to read all the verses to 
the congregation. In like manner one might announce as a 
text Matthew xviii. 35 : "So shall also My heavenly Father do 
unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your 
hearts"; but why not announce your entire text, the parable 
itself of the unmerciful servant, together with our Lord's ap- 
plication of it in this thirty-fifth verse? 

In some cases, however, no other than an epitome text is 
available, because the whole textual basis of the sermon may 
include various long and widely separated passages. Dr. 
William M. Taylor, for example, has a sermon on the provi- 
dence of God in Paul's visit to Rome, in which he undertakes 
to show (1) that it was a long-cherished purpose of the apostle 
to visit Rome; (2) that this purpose was not attained in the 
way that he had expected ; (3) that nevertheless his visit ac- 
complished the desired object. The text is a very brief sen- 
tence, "And so we went toward Rome" (Acts xxviii. 14), but 
felicitously chosen to represent the whole history. 

A fine example of an epitome text is the passage selected by 
Monod for his sermon on " Mary Magdalene " : " Now when 
He was risen on the first day of the week, He appeared first 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM— USE, CHOICE 117 

to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven 
devils " (Mark xvi. 9). Here the two greatest facts in the life 
of the subject of the discourse — the one representing her earlier 
and the other her later life — are significantly brought together 
in a single sentence. But the genuineness of the passage is 
very doubtful. 



LECTURE II 

THE SCRIPTURE GERM — CHOICE, TREATMENT 

TAKING up again the topic under discussion at the close 
of the last lecture, we may consider the choice of texts 
3. As to Language. 

(7) Generally speaking, it is an advantage that the text 
should be & plain, perspicuous passage,— ax\ immediate commu- 
nication to the hearer. But some of the best texts are hard 
to interpret, and we are not to reject them on this account. 
" Idleness," says Wesley, " has eaten out the heart of half our 
preachers." One of its common forms is the looking round 
lazily for some Scripture verse that is easy to make a sermon 
on. But it is not always the land most easily plowed that 
yields the finest crop, or the straight-grained stick of wood that 
makes the hottest fire. Study the text to which you are some- 
how drawn, but which seems strangely evasive or unyielding. 
Ere long it may furnish you a sermon more original and more 
forcible than did any of its predecessors. Do not fancy, 
however, that you are ready to preach from such a text — 
or any other— till it has become entirely clear to your own 
mind. 

(8) A large part of the Bible is marked by great pathos, or 
beauty, or sublimity of language. Shall these qualities have 
any influence in determining the selection of texts? A few 
hints will suffice to put the question fairly before you. 

(a) Passages of this sort may or may not be rich in materials 
118 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM— CHOICE, TREATMENT 119 

of preaching. The Messianic prophecy of Isaiah, "And a 
man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert 
from the tempest ; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the 
shadow of a great rock in a weary land," is not only extremely 
beautiful in expression, but easily susceptible of homiletic 
treatment. But a similar utility could hardly be affirmed of 
this equally beautiful description of the millennial glory : " Thy 
sun shall no more go down ; neither shall thy moon withdraw 
itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the 
days of thy mourning shall be ended " (Isa. lx. 20). It would 
be hard to find in all literature a more sublime passage than 
Revelation xx. 11, but do you find in it suitable materials for 
a sermon? Read the following verse : " And I saw the dead, 
the great and the small, standing before the throne ; and the 
books were opened ; . . . and the dead were judged out of 
the things which were written in the books, according to their 
works." Here is hardly less sublimity, and how much greater 
fertility of homiletic thought! 

Dr. R. W. Dale has given an interesting account of a sermon 
that he heard on the words, " We all do fade as a leaf " : 

" The little chapel in which it was delivered was in the lake 
country. The ferns on the hills and the woods below were 
taking their autumn tints of brown and gold. It was only 
necessary to step outside, and the beautiful country was a far 
more perfect and affecting sermon on the text than any mortal 
lips could deliver. For five or ten minutes, however, the 
preacher, who was a lady, succeeded admirably. She had 
caught the sentiment of the text, and her quiet, gentle manner 
was in harmony with the pathos of her words. But then the 
vein was worked out, and the rest of the sermon was a series 
of colorless commonplaces. This was not the preacher's fault. 
The beauty and pathetic power of the text are derived from 
the perfection of the poetical form in which the brevity and 
decay of human life and strength and glory are expressed. 
A sermon on a text like that should be a prose poem, but the 



120 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

theme hardly admits of sufficient variation to permit the poem 
to expand to the ordinary length of a sermon." 

(/>) Gifts and acquirements differ. A subject suitable for 
one preacher is not necessarily suitable for another, nor for the 
same man in a different period of his ministry. Some men can 
treat the profoundest texts successfully — some few men. So, 
likewise, with respect to the most pathetic or the most splendid 
passages. The only time I have had the pleasure of hearing 
Dr. Moses D. Hoge his text was Revelation v. 13; and the 
sermon, not elaborate or profound, but fervid, illustrative, elo- 
quent, joyous, moved steadily along from first to last on the 
plane of that lofty doxology. A favorite text with young 
preachers is the grand thanksgiving chorus of the redeemed 
over the destruction of Antichrist and the final consummation 
of the Redeemer's kingdom: "Alleluia! for the Lord God 
omnipotent reigneth." Why not be satisfied, for the first 
few years of your ministry at least, with some such parallel 
passage as "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice" 
(Ps. xcvii. 1)? An intelligent and godly congregation would, 
in almost every case, be pleased to hear you announce this 
rather than that. 

(9) Among the painful peculiarities of the pulpit is the an- 
nouncement of texts which, as such, make the impression of 
oddity or grotesqueness. This poor affectation, I am happy to 
say, is less common than formerly. The good sense, good 
taste, and sincerity of the Christian preacher will usually lift 
him above it. Of simplicity and fresh thought we shall never 
have too much ; of clownishness it is impossible to have too 
little. 

(10) Generally speaking, an unfamiliar text is preferable. 
It arrests the hearer's attention at the outset by the promise 
of some new presentation of truth. The exposition of it en- 
larges appreciably his knowledge of the Scriptures. Not only 
so, but the sermon is more likely to be the preacher's own, — 
to have in it all the flavor and force of his personality. 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM-CHOICE, TREATMENT 121 

Nevertheless, freshness and originality in the sermon depend 
on the preacher rather than on his subject ; and as to the sub- 
ject or text, such a suggestion as that of Dr. Broadus is very 
pertinent : " What has made some texts familiar to all, but the 
fact that they are so manifestly good texts?" Many things 
are familiar because common, and God has made them com- 
mon because of their superlative value,— the common air, the 
common sunshine, the common earth, our common humanity, 
the common salvation proclaimed in the Gospel. Is it not so 
with certain great utterances of our Lord, and with other great 
words of truth? They have become the inheritance of the 
multitude. By far the larger part of the Bible is known to 
very few, but we should rejoice that these great and supreme 
truths are commonly known. In them the Gospel is condensed, 
epitomized, radiant. "This verse," said Neesima, the first 
native apostle of Japan, speaking of John iii. 16, "is the sun 
among all the stars which shine upon the pages of God's holy 
Word." They will shine in the pulpit as in the Bible, these 
fittest and richest themes of preaching, to the end of time. 

4. As to the Contents of texts. 

(n) It is plain enough that we should prefer such as are 
distinctively significant and fruitful. In the ministry of a 
lifetime we shall not exhaust the hundredth part of this class of 
Scriptures; why, then, use those that are not equally well 
adapted to our purpose? 

True, we cannot preach too specifically. Christian doctrine 
should be set forth in many aspects and in all its diverse appli- 
cations to the individual life. But it by no means follows that 
each of these must form the theme of a separate discourse. 
In preaching on the subject of paying debts, for example, we 
do not need to devote the entire sermon to this one phase of 
Christian morality. Take as your text, " Owe no man any- 
thing, but to love one another" (Rom. xiii. 8). Your theme 
is " The Unpayable Debt," but in connection with this the 
duty of discharging the debts that can be fully paid may be 



122 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

all the more effectually enforced. It may be incumbent on 
you to apply the principles of the Gospel to such subjects as 
dress, cleanliness, good manners, accomplishments ; but your 
general subject will be " Personal Influence," or, it may be, 
"The Christian Purpose in Pleasing One's Neighbor" (Rom. 
xv. 2). It may be your duty to rebuke such bad habits as 
misbehavior in church, or punning on the words of Scripture ; 
and this may be done very impressively in a sermon on " Rever- 
ence for Sacred Things." Justice and kindness to animals are 
much-neglected duties even in our Christian civilization, and 
may properly constitute now and then the theme of a whole 
discourse. But more frequently and more effectively, perhaps, 
we may set them forth as specific forms of the general duties 
of justice and kindness. Our humble non-human servants 
themselves, could they speak in their own behalf, would 
doubtless plead for both these methods of presenting their 
cause. 

Again, many passages that are too specific to be used as 
whole texts may be treated directly and distinctly as parts of 
longer texts, especially in expository preaching. 

It is hardly necessary to add that none of the counsels here 
offered must be so construed as to encourage a disposition in 
the beginner to attempt sermons on the most profound and 
far-reaching passages of the Bible. I knew a young preacher 
whose first text was, " And in the days of those kings shall the 
God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be de- 
stroyed," etc. (Dan. ii. 44). What could he hope to say, with 
his very limited range of thought and reading, on such a sub- 
ject? Spend your strength on great themes; choose distinc- 
tively fruitful texts ; but do not be ashamed to acknowledge 
that some declarations of Scripture are as yet beyond your 
pulpit powers. 

(12) What shall we say of texts as fragmentary or complete? 
In one sense the great majority are fragmentary; that is to 
say, they express only a small part of the author's mean- 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM-CHOICE, TREATMENT 123 

ing. This flows on unbroken through many verses or para- 
graphs. But any declarative sentence, whether compound, 
complex, or simple, may be regarded as representing a single 
complete idea. An interrogative sentence, however, if answered 
by the author himself, does not, without its answer, give a com- 
plete idea. When, e.g., the apostle James asks, " What is your 
life? " (iv. 14), the thought waits for complete expression in 
the declarative answer, " For ye are a vapor, that appeareth 
for a little time, and then vanisheth away." Ought such an 
interrogation to be used alone as a text, and the preacher's 
own answer be given? I should say not. The sermon would 
be something entirely separate and apart from the idea of the 
passage. 

But the question of completeness and incompleteness relates 
mainly to the use of parts of sentences as texts. These may 
be divided for our present purpose into clauses, phrases, muti- 
lated sentences, and single words. 

Undoubtedly a clause may be used as a text. In fact it is 
largely a matter of literary form whether an idea shall be at- 
tached to another in the form of a clause or shall be expressed 
as a simple sentence. In the latter case its use as a text would 
be approved without the least hesitation; why not, then, in 
the former? 

The same may be said of a phrase. It may often be readily 
substituted by a clause or a sentence. Take, e.g., the words, 
" Joseph of Arimathsea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly 
for fear of the Jews " (John xix. 38). The idea here is no less 
complete than if it had been written, " Joseph of Arimathaea, 
who was a disciple of Jesus," etc., or, "Joseph of Arimathsea 
was a disciple of Jesus," etc. Take as another example 
Romans xii. 10-13. Here we have one imperative sentence 
and nine phrases. But all might have been expressed, without 
any essential change of meaning, imperatively. Indeed, in the 
Greek the grammatical form of them all is the same. 

The fact that a Scripture truth appears in the form of a 



124 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

phrase is no reason, then, for refusing its use as a text. It 
may be very rich in meaning and suggestiveness ; it may set 
forth a great theme more strikingly than this theme is presented 
elsewhere. Where shall we find better texts on experimental 
and practical religion than some of the phrases in the last-cited 
example? What sweeter and grander theme than the words, 
" The God of my life " (Ps. xlii. 8) ; or, " The Son of God, 
who loved me, and gave Himself for me " (Gal. ii. 20) ; or, 
" The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. iv. 6)? All depends on the contents 
of the phrase. The objection to such texts as " Faint, yet 
pursuing," "When I was a child," and the like, is not that 
they are fragments, but that they are not homiletically fruitful. 
If through a change of form they should become sentences, 
they would still be unsuitable. 

By a mutilated sentence is meant one in which, though it 
be grammatically complete, something necessary to the true 
sense has been omitted. It need hardly be said that such a 
fragment, perverted and misleading, is not a text of Scripture 
at all. The words " Have respect of persons " (James ii. 9) 
and " Glorying is evil " (James iv. 16) are examples. 

The omission of intervening words may also be described 
as the mutilation of a sentence. E.g., you announce, " My 
text is Revelation ii. 2 : 'I know thy patience.' " The passage 
as written is, "I know thy works, and thy toil and patience." 
Have you the right to leave out the intervening words? Cer- 
tainly not. Read continuously from your starting-point ; then 
cal' attention to the particular part of the passage which you 
propose to discuss. 

Still another way in which a sentence may be so mutilated 
as to become unfit for use as a text is by leaving out words 
which, while not strictly necessary to the true sense of those 
announced, are yet vitally and significantly connected with 
them. Such texts, e.g., as " Ye are saved " (Eph. ii. 5) and 
" Ye will keep My commandments " (John xiv. 1 5) are broken 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM— CHOICE, TREATMENT 125 

off so suddenly from their connections, and can be treated so 
much more effectually as parts of the larger truths in which 
they appear, that no sufficient reason can be urged for their 
use as subjects of sermons. A still plainer example is the 
words, " Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss " 
(James iv. 3). The apostle here uses the word "amiss" with 
a definitely restricted meaning, which he immediately states in 
an explanatory clause, " that ye may spend it in your pleasures." 
To leave out this clause and give one's own meaning to the 
word— showing this and that fault in our prayers, through 
which they are made unfruitful — is "handling the Word of 
God deceitfully." On the other hand, if the apostle's line of 
thought as expressed in the omitted clause be followed, either 
in part or wholly, then this clause should not be omitted from 
the text. 

As to texts consisting of a single word, they are only so- 
called. Mr. Moody's sermon entitled " Good News," for 
which the word "The Gospel" (1 Cor. xv. 1) is announced 
as the text, is really a sermon or address without any text 
at all. Why announce 1 Corinthians xv. 1 rather than any 
other of a hundred passages in which this same great word 
occurs with equal significance? The announcement is only 
a polite bow to an established custom, — a form which, losing 
its idea, forfeits thereby its justification and lapses into for- 
mality. 

Just two general suggestions concerning the use of frag- 
mentary texts, (a) Let the preacher read to the congregation, 
either on announcing the text or afterward, not simply the 
text itself, but also the immediate context, showing the con- 
nection of thought, and then ask that attention be confined to 
the selected words, (o) Let him choose a complete sentence 
rather than a fragment when practicable. The more compre- 
hensive our knowledge of holy Scripture, the deeper our 
reverence for its teachings, the more truly philosophic our 
modes of thought, the stronger will be our instinctive preference 



126 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

for fullness and completeness of meaning in the inspired words 
out of which we bring to men the unsearchable riches of 
Christ. 

III. The Methods of Treatment. 

The type of the plant is in the seed. While growth is not 
the mere unfolding of a germ, but an indefinable process of 
life, in which new parts and organs appear from time to time, 
yet the final form of the plant, the class, is determined, what- 
ever modifications may be made through soil and climate, by 
the nature of the seed itself. But we must not expect the 
analogy to hold good at this point between plants and sermons. 
The form or species of the sermon depends partly, indeed, on 
the text, but chiefly on the mode of treatment to which this 
Scripture is subjected. 

It is the method of treating the text, then, that determines 
the form of the sermon. Now let us specify. 

i . The least use that we can make of a text is to draw from 
it a theme only. In such a case we call the sermon topical. 
If an exposition of the text be given, it is given in the intro- 
duction and for the purpose of disengaging the theme. This 
done, the text is dropped, and it does not reappear. The 
discussion from beginning to end is independent of it. 

Frequently the theme is distinctly stated. In other cases it 
is more or less obscurely and tentatively expressed, as if the 
preacher either were not quite certain concerning it himself, 
or chose for some reason to give his hearers only a paraphrase 
of the sharply-cut proposition in his own mind. 

Phillips Brooks, whose sermonizing is for the most part on 
the topical method, will furnish us good examples. Here are 
some brief and unequivocal statements of his themes : " This 
is the truth of which I wish to speak to you to-day, — the per- 
petual revelation of God by human life " ; " The joy and glory 
of self-sacrifice shall be our subject " ; " We may call our sub- 
ject the nature "and method of the growth of Christian 
character " ; "I want to speak to you this morning of the 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM-CHOICE, TREATMENT 127 

manliness of Christ." But sometimes he makes no one clear 
and definite statement of his theme, as, for instance, in the 
admirable discourse entitled "The Man of Macedonia " (Acts 
xvi. 9). Here, after showing that the vision did not mean that 
the people of Europe were wishing and actually asking for the 
Gospel, but that they had the capacity for it and the imperative 
need of it, he continues : " And is not this a very noble and 
a very true idea? It is the unsatisfied soul, the deep need, all 
the more needy because the outside life, perfectly satisfied with 
itself, does not know that it is needy all the time, — it is this that 
God hears pleading. This soul is the true Macedonia. And 
so this, as the representative Macedonian, the man of Mace- 
donia, brings the appeal. How noble and touching is the 
picture which this gives us of God! The unconscious needs 
of the world are all appeals and cries to Him. He does not 
wait — " And so on through a whole paragraph, expressing 
suggestively and variously the truth which he proposes to speak 
about, and assuming that the hearer, without direct informa- 
tion, will recognize it as such. 

2. But as often as otherwise we get not only our theme, but 
also its subordinate topics, or divisions, from the text. These 
are then treated after the ordinary manner of oratorical am- 
plification, and we have the textual sermon. 

The divisions may be given in the text either explicitly or 
by implication. As illustrative of the first case let us take such 
a passage as 1 Peter i. 24, 25, — finding in it, as our line of 
treatment, " The Frailty of Man and the Stability of the 
Gospel." Here the two divisions lie plainly on the surface of 
the text. As an example of that large class of texts in which 
the divisions are not immediately apparent, take the words of 
our Lord in Matthew xxv. 23. The theme, "The Christian 
Worker's Future Reward." The divisions : (1) The particular 
quality of our work for Christ which makes it rewardable, viz., 
its fidelity. (2) The relation of the reward to the service, — 
they are of the same nature. (3) The suitableness of the re- 



128 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ward,— the admission of the good and faithful servant into 
participation in his Lord's joy. 

Not infrequently some of the divisions are given explicitly, 
while others are more or less obscurely implied in the language 
of the text. Take as an example the last verse of the Epistle 
of James. Its theme, " The Greatness of Conversion," may 
be developed as follows: (i) The sinner is in error. (2) The 
way of error leads to death. (3) The sinner may be converted. 
(4) He who succeeds in converting the sinner accomplishes 
two great works : (a) he saves a soul from death ; (/;) he hides 
a multitude of sins. Here the last division is stated, while the 
other three are plainly implied in the text. 

It is evident that for the homiletic use of the first-mentioned 
class of passages no special skill is necessary. It is in seeking 
out the half -revealed and half-concealed truths that the finest 
power of interpretative insight may be employed. The mere 
casual observer may gather up the outcropping ore, but to 
sink the shaft requires somewhat of the miner's wisdom and art. 

Sometimes divisions are found in the context, as, e.g., in the 
case of the epitome text ; or even in the remote context. In 
Dr. Deems's sermon on " Characteristics of a Sinful Life " 
(Rom. vi. 21) the author gets three divisions from the text and 
the fourth from the immediate context: (1) Its barrenness; 
(2) its slaver}'/ (3) its shamefulness ; (4) its destructiveness. 
Or take as an example the following : 

Text : " I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord " (Gen. 
xlix. 18). 

Divisions: 1. There may be this waiting attitude of the 
soul in a person who is far from being a perfect character. 

2. Gives inspiration and strength. 

3. The salvation is made known again and again. 

4. Is fully realized at last. 

Here the divisions are drawn from the whole life of the 
patriarch who speaks, in the text, from his death-bed. 



THE SCRIPTURE GERM— CHOICE, TREATMENT 129 

The sermon constructed on this method is contextual, and it 
may be regarded as a variety of the textual. 

Note, also, that when subdivisions are employed these like- 
wise may be found in the text. But this is by no means a 
requirement of the textual sermon. It is most likely to occur 
when the main divisions are very general in character and few 
in number. F. W. Robertson's sermon on "The Parable of 
the Sower " is a good example : 

Text: Matthew xiii. 1-9. 
Divisions : 1 . The causes of failure : 

(1) Want of spiritual perception — "the wayside." 

(2) Want of depth in character — "stony places." 

(3) Dissipating influences— " thorns." 

2. Requirements for permanence of religious impressions: 

(1) Sincerity — " an honest and good heart "(Luke viii. 15). 

(2) Meditation — "keep it" (Luke viii. 15). 

(3) Endurance — " with patience " (Luke viii. 15). 

Now it is evident that the texual treatment of a text offers 
less liberty as to the range of discussion than does the topical. 
The one marks out a path for us ; the other gives only a start- 
ing-point. Hence the topical method is chosen when we wish 
to pursue a different line of thought from what seems possible 
under textual divisions. It is favorable also to a fuller and 
better unitized development of the theme. The textual treat- 
ment, on the other hand, is more expository and usually more 
interesting and suggestive. 

3. There is also a combination of the topical and the textual 
method that is worthy of consideration. In this mode of ser- 
monizing the thoughts which constitute the divisions are found 
partly in the text and partly otherwhere. It may be called the 
textual-topical method. Examples are too abundant, but one 
will suffice for illustration. In Richard Watson's sermon on 
"The Reign of God" (Ps. xcvii. 1) he says: "The text calls 
us to consider: (1) The subjects of the divine government. 
(2) Certain characters which mark the administration of the 



130 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

world. (3) Those proofs of the doctrine that ' the Lord reign- 
eth ' which late occurrences have furnished. (4) The demand 
which is made upon our grateful joy : ' Let the earth rejoice.' " 
Here the fourth division is drawn from the text; the others 
are simply divisions of the theme. This last division, indeed, 
is properly the theme of the text, which is a passage invit- 
ing topical rather than textual development. 

Ordinarily this composite method of treatment had better 
be avoided. The wholly topical or the wholly textual method 
is more stimulating, more promotive of symmetry of discourse, 
and less liable to degenerate into useless elaboration and ex- 
cessive length of discussion. 

Read chapter iii., " Of the Text," in Vinet's " Homiletics." 



LECTURE III 



EXPOSITION — PRINCIPLES 



THE delivery of sermons is not coextensive with preaching, 
but is only its full-volumedform. There are other homi- 
letic products, such as the exhortation, the lecture, the Scrip- 
ture exposition. The sermon differs from these in unity of 
idea and elaborateness of structure. It is the possession of 
these two qualities that entitles a persuasive deliverance of 
Scripture truth to be called a sermon. 

The Salvationist stands amid a group of wretched men and 
women in the slums and says (to quote a typical instance) : 
" You are wrong. You know you are. All this misery and 
poverty are a proof of it. You are prodigals. You have got 
away from your Father's house, and you are rebelling against 
Him every day. Can you wonder that there is so much 
hunger and oppression and wretchedness allowed to come 
upon you? In the midst of it all your Father loves you. He 
wants you to return to Him, — to turn your backs upon your 
sins, abandon your evil doings, give up drink and the service 
of the devil. He has given His Son to die for you. He wants 
to save you. Come to His feet. He is waiting. His arms 
are open. I know the devil has got fast hold of you, but 
Jesus will give you grace to conquer him. He will help you 
to master your wicked habits and your love of drink. But 
come to Him now. God is love. He loves me. He loves 
you. He loves us all. He wants to save us all." Now this 
131 



132 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

may not be a sermon— it is not; but it is the preaching of 
the Gospel. To exhort with the power of the Holy Spirit is to 
preach ; to deliver a sermon without it is not. Jesus said to a 
man who had just professed to be His disciple, " Go thou and 
publish abroad the kingdom of God " (Luke ix. 60). What 
sort of sermon could he have constructed? 

But in the study of preaching upon which we have entered 
it is almost exclusively with the preparation and delivery of 
sermons that our attention shall be engaged; for this will 
practically include the whole subject. 

Let us inquire, then, first of all, what are the processes 
through which, out of the germinant Scripture truth, the ser- 
mon is developed? 

What one of them must be we have already seen. In fact, 
the name by which I have called the text implies that the very 
fundamental process — in a sense, the whole process — in the 
development of the sermon, is exposition. It often constitutes 
the introduction ; in textual preaching it furnishes a line of in- 
terpretative statements ("divisions"); and in some cases the 
discourse is so largely made up of exposition as to be called, 
by way of distinction, expository. 

The Bible is a recorded testimony. In it men tell us what 
they have seen in the kingdom of God : " The witness is this, 
that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 
He that hath the Son hath the life ; he that hath not the Son 
of God hath not the life " (1 John v. n, 12). " Verily, verily, 
I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and bear witness 
of that we have seen" (John hi. n). In Christian preaching 
the written record of this testimony of chosen witnesses, and, 
above all, of Jesus the Christ, is read and expounded. 

More specifically the Bible is a book of facts, doctrines, and 
precepts. The facts constitute the history of our redemption 
in Christ, — in the Old Testament the long and progressive 
preparation for it, and in the New Testament its actual accom- 
plishment in the Incarnation and the Cross of our Lord. Its 



EXPOSITION-PRINCIPLES 133 

doctrines are the divine truths of which these facts are the 
expression ; its precepts are the law of righteousness given of 
God for the government of conduct in accordance with these 
stupendous facts and truths. 

" Let a man so account of us," says the apostle Paul, " as 
of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God" 
(i Cor. iv. i). A " mystery," in the apostle's use of language, is 
a spiritual truth heretofore hidden from the human understand- 
ing, or at the best vaguely hinted by types and half -understood 
prophecies, but now unveiled to all who receive the Gospel. 
The supreme and all-comprehensive mystery is the redemption 
of mankind by the death and mediation of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. To the first disciples this revelation was made through 
the senses (i John i. 1-3) and through divine illumination 
(Matt. xvi. 17 ; John xvi. 13). To Paul it was made through 
divine illumination, without the knowledge of Christ according 
to the flesh (Gal. i. 15, 16). To them all it was committed as 
a trust. The use they were required by the Master to make 
of it was to bear witness concerning it to others. Their testi- 
mony finally took a permanent outward form in the Gospels 
and the Epistles ; and these precious writings, through the 
providence and the Spirit of God, have been intrusted to us, 
who are likewise to be " accounted as ministers of Christ, and 
stewards of the mysteries of God." May we not expect, then, 
that a large part of our duty shall be to expound the inspired 
record, the Scriptures, in which this revelation of God in 
Christ is contained? We find, accordingly, that in the hum- 
blest house of preaching, whatever else may be lacking, the Book 
of Testimony, like the ark and the law in the most holy place 
of the tabernacle, is always there ; so that the Christian preacher, 
like many other instructors, has a Book before him out of which 
to teach. 

"And who is sufficient for these things?" It would be 
hard to overstate the requirements in knowledge, sagacity, 
sympathy, spiritual insight, labor. But is it not so in every 



134 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

work of the Lord? Doing what we can, we need not be 
disheartened at the pressure upon us of an infinite duty ; for it 
is equally the touch of an infinite power and help. 

By all means let us learn to read our New Testament with 
facility in the language in which it was first written. It is 
delightful to do mining for one's self " in the primary and aurif- 
erous rock of Scripture." I would not, indeed, set before you the 
aim of critical scholarship. This you will probably never have 
time for. But a literary knowledge of New Testament Greek, 
or even less than this, will do you incalculable service. Let expe- 
rience decide. Ask those who have made the Greek Testament 
their constant companion during the years of their ministry. 

As to Hebrew, my personal knowledge is so limited that I 
feel incapable of giving first-hand counsel ; and neither here nor 
elsewhere would I offer any other. Not, of course, that there 
can be the slightest doubt of the value of Hebrew to any reader 
of the Old Testament ; for the difference between having access 
to an original language and reading a translation is about the 
difference between seeing a thing for yourself and being told 
of it by others. But the practical question of the ministerial 
student is, Will it be expedient for me, with my mental equip- 
ment and in my circumstances, to undertake to become a 
Hebraist ? In answer to such a question I do not hesitate, 
at least, to say that those who have a good opportunity to 
learn Hebrew in their preparation for the ministry, and fail to 
do so, or after having gained a reading knowledge of the 
language lose it through neglect, seem to be inexcusable. 

Then do not grudge the effort necessary to acquire such 
exegetical scholarship as may be needful. Meanwhile make 
good use of what you already possess, however small it may 
be. It will illumine, not the obscurest passages, perhaps, but, 
what is of greater importance, the plainer ones. "A little 
learning is an excellent thing,"— not only good in itself, but 
promotive of the desire for more. If your knowledge of 



EXPOSITION-PRINCIPLES 135 

Greek extend only to the first letter of the alphabet, it will 
help you to understand one of our Lord's greatest sayings con- 
cerning Himself; and if you have Hebrew enough only to 
explain the reference in Matthew v. 18, it is worth having. 
Do not be discouraged for a moment at your ignorance. It 
is an imperfection that will cast its shadow over the whole of 
your life and make itself felt more and more — if you keep on 
learning. But be faithful in that which is least, and you shall 
have great riches,— remembering always that the ultimate aim, 
the fulfilment of your commission, is not to become a scholar, 
but to become a teacher and preacher of Jesus Christ. "Ap- 
ply yourselves wholly to this one thing, and draw all your 
cares and studies this way." 

Do you find satisfaction in reading the Scriptures? Do 
you read them, or only eulogize them? There is much unin- 
telligent laudation of the Bible. People set it above all other 
books, but do not take the pains so to read it as to make it 
really enjoyable and helpful. Take, e.g., First Corinthians. 
Read a chapter or two to-day, a similar portion to-morrow, 
and so on to the end of the epistle, without explanatory read- 
ing, without study, without interpretation. The result, both in 
pleasure and profit, will be small. But try a different method. 
Read the book as a book, the epistle as an epistle. Consider 
who wrote it, to whom, and why. Look into the Acts of the 
Apostles ; consult some " Life " of Paul ; make intelligent use 
of a good commentary. Follow out the teaching through 
passage after passage, from the superscription to the closing 
salutations ; let it sink down into your spirit as well as enter 
your intellect ; and you will find in this pastoral letter of Paul 
to his gifted and fervent but contentious Corinthian converts 
both an interesting picture of human experience and a living 
word of God. In like manner each book of the Bible, thus 
really read, will make its rich and distinct contribution to your 
treasure of Scripture knowledge. 



136 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

I. Some Principles of Exposition. 

It is not my province to teach the general subject of biblical 
interpretation, but I may properly call your attention to a few 
leading principles, with special reference to their homiletic 
utility. 

i. The most comprehensive principle of all is, that the ex- 
position of Scripture, like the exposition of any other writing, 
should be ?iatural and reasonable. The presumption is that the 
words, whether of the original or a translation, are to be under- 
stood in their ordinary sense, according to the usage of the 
language. When used in a technical sense — e.g., the terms "jus- 
tification," " the flesh," " the world," and others in the Epistles 
— the interpretation is to be learned by a careful comparison of 
the passages in which they are found. Indeed, all the chief 
words of the Bible are charged with a fullness and depth of 
meaning that does not belong to them in any other literature. 
But in every case the question is not, What does this passage 
suggest? but, What does it mean? Not, What does it suit my 
purpose or wish to have it mean? but, What does it mean? 

(i) A figure of speech is not to be flattefied out into literalness. 
We know this to have been a frequent blunder of our Lord's 
hearers, even of the chosen and instructed Twelve. Jesus 
said, " Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the king- 
dom of God " ; and Nicodemus replied, " How can a man be 
born when he is old? " He said, " If thou knewest the gift of 
God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink ; thou 
wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee 
living water " ; and the woman of Samaria asked Him, " Sir, 
Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep : from 
whence then hast Thou that living water? " He said, " Take 
heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Saddu- 
cees " ; and the disciples "reasoned among themselves, saying, 
We took no bread." 

Martin Luther says, with reference to the Lord's Supper, 
" I have not yet decided whether water should be mixed with 



EXPOSITION-PRINCIPLES 137 

the wine, although I am inclined to have pure wine prepared 
without mixing it with water, since the expression given in the 
first chapter of Isaiah restrains me : ' Your wine,' he says, ' is 
mixed with water ' " (Isa. i. 22). Does this passage offer any 
foundation for his scruple? 

I know a man of no mean intellectual ability who remarked, 
after reading the Pilgrim's Progress faithfully through, that 
he " saw nothing in it." An unpoetic mind is slow to per- 
ceive double meanings. It cannot speak in parables, and 
cannot sympathize with the imaginative thought of those that 
do. Recognizing a metaphor or an allegory, such a mind will 
probably say, " That is only a figure," whereas it would often 
be truer to say, "That is even a figure," — a word of larger 
significance than the literal word. Through lack of this poet- 
ic sensibility, or through less worthy causes, the theological 
mind has often insisted on a literal rendering of metaphorical 
language. The colossal example is that of the Church of 
Rome founding her dogma of transubstantiation on the dec- 
laration of our Lord at the Last Supper : " This is My body. 
. . . This is My blood." 

(2) Literal statements are not to be perverted into ??ietaphors 
and allegories. Here again the first interpreters of the sayings 
of Jesus seem to have been at fault. When He predicted 
His sufferings and death they refused to take His words lit 
erally, probably supposing His meaning to be " that the pres- 
ent lowly form of His work was to die and disappear, and His 
cause to rise, as it were, out of the grave in a triumphant and 
glorious shape." And in this species of misinterpretation they 
had many predecessors and have had a vast multitude of fol- 
lowers. I once heard a venerable lay preacher say," "I have 
my own opinion about the preaching of John the Baptist in 
the wilderness of Judea : I think it refers to the wilderness 
state of the church." He might have gone further and, in no 
less distinguished theological company than that of Thomas 
Aquinas (whose works the present pope has recommended as 



138 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

an antidote for the mental unrest of our day), have enjoyed 
his "own opinion" that John's camel's-hair clothing represented 
the church of the Gentiles, and that the locusts and wild 
honey which he ate signified that his preaching was to the 
multitude " sweet like honey, but short of flight like locusts." 
Similar explanations of Scripture have been offered by an 
unbroken succession of interpreters from the days of the cabal- 
ists, who found a mystic meaning in the separate letters into 
which they divided its words, even down to the present time. 
The patriarch Jacob, on his way to Haran, " lighted upon a 
certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was 
set," and there Jehovah appeared to him in a dream (Gen. 
xxviii. 10-22); the meaning of which experience, said Philo, 
is that not until the sun of reason has set can divine know- 
ledge be obtained. "The sun knoweth his going down" 
( Ps. civ. 1 9) : this, said the great Augustine, is to be under- 
stood of Christ, who knew beforehand the time of His death. 
" And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled. 
And he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him 
seven days' journey" (Gen. xxxi. 22, 23): this, said the 
Venerable Bede, represents the world pursuing the elect; 
and inasmuch as Laban means " whitened," he is also a " sym- 
bol of the devil transformed into an angel of light." "And 
Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, 
and the other on the other side ; and his hands were steady 
until the going down of the sun" (Ex. xvii. 12): "the Isra- 
elites," says Wheatley, in his " Rational Illustration of the 
Book of Common Prayer," " could overcome the Amalekites 
no longer than Moses by stretching out his arms continued in 
the form of a cross ; which undoubtedly prefigured that our 
salvation was to be obtained through the means of the Cross." 
The biblical scholarship of our own day has not entirely 
rejected its inheritance from this school of allegorical exegesis, 
which was so popular and influential during long periods of 
the past. The Bible as it is not being spiritual enough for 



EXPOSITION—PRINCIPLES 139 

some of our Christian teachers, they must " spiritualize " it for 
the greater edification of the people. Only this evening a 
friend told me that in a sermon to which he listened last Sun- 
day, by an able and popular preacher, on the text " But light- 
ing upon a place where two seas met, they ran the vessel 
aground" (Acts xxvii. 41), the words "where two seas met" 
were repeated from time to time as furnishing the theme of 
the discourse, which was "The Combination of Untoward 
Circumstances in Life," or something of that sort. From what 
other book would any authorized public teacher take " texts " 
and expound them after such a fashion? 

Whatever this kind of dealing with the language of the 
Scriptures may be, it is not exposition: it does not set forth 
their meaning, but employs the written Word as a mere con- 
venient starting-point for the interpreter's own nimble fancy, — 
so that he may go from anywhere to anywhere. It honors the 
Bible only as the stars are honored by astrology, with which 
branch of learning it may be scientifically classed. 

(3) The popular and literary language of the Bible must be 
taken for what it is, and not as having the precisiofi of a scien- 
tific statement. This principle needs to be constantly borne in 
mind. Bible phraseology is not that of the schools. It is 
characteristically that of every-day life, — idiomatic, suggestive, 
poetic, full of emotion, concrete rather than abstract. 

For example: "That man was perfect and upright" (Job 
i. 1) ; "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My 
heart, who shall do all My will" (Acts xiii. 22) ; "Walking in 
all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless " 
(Luke i. 6) ; " Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus 
minded" (Phil. iii. 15). Is it meant that these men were ab- 
solutely flawless in character and filled with all possible spiri- 
tual goodness? A natural and reasonable interpretation of the 
language finds no such incomparable perfection ascribed to 
them. 

" Work not for the meat which pcrishcth, but for the meat 



110 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

which abideth unto eternal life" (John vi. 27). Are the toil- 
hardened hands of the farmer, then, a sign of disobedience to 
Christ? 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy 
mind" (Luke x. 27). Are we to suppose that some sharply 
discriminated power of our nature is referred to in each of 
these words? 

"Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. v. 17). 'Not continuously 
(cf. Rom. i. 9; 1. Thess. i. 3 ; ii. 13). 

" Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would bor- 
row of thee turn not thou away" (Matt. v. 42). Note some 
complementary truth, such as 2 Thessalonians iii. 10. 

"Am I seeking to please men? if I were still pleasing men, 
I should not be a servant of Christ" (Gal. i. 10). Here the 
complementary passage is 1 Corinthians x. 33. 

Compare Matthew xii. 37 and Matthew xxv. 34-46. 

(4) This principle is violated also through theological pre- 
judgments. Not a few theologians have the knack of seeing 
in a passage of Scripture what may or may not be there, but 
in either case what they desire to find. Common sense, 
knowledge, insight, must all give way before a mind prede- 
termined to pursue its course along a chosen line of thought. 
Not otherwise, surely, would any well-informed thinker be 
likely to find the doctrine of the Trinity in Genesis i. 1 and 
Isaiah vi. 3 ; or of total depravity in Isaiah Ixiv. 6 ; or of the 
sinlessness of Christ in Luke xxiii. 4 ; or of sacramentarianism 
in 1 Corinthians iv. 1 ; or of universal salvation in 1 Corinthians 
xv. 22. 

It would be hard to say which is the more objectionable, the 
allegorical method of interpretation, or this, the eisegetical. The 
former is more grotesque, the latter more sober and apparently 
reasonable ; both are dishonoring to the Bible — as they would 
be to any book, even the humblest in the world— and injurious 
to the interpreter's own mind and morals. Both face in the 



EXPOSITION— PRINCIPLES 141 

direction of the Jewish traditionalism, which did not hesitate to 
assert : " The words of the scribes are lovely above the words 
of the law ; for the words of the law are weighty and light, but 
the words of the scribes are all weighty." 

( 5 ) All straining and distorting of the Scriptures for homiletic 
purposes must be avoided. There is no reference to the future 
punishment of the wicked in the words, "The wicked shall 
be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God " ; nor 
to the redemption of mankind by Christ in " the redemption 
of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever " ; nor to the 
joys of heaven in " the things that God hath prepared for them 
that love Him " ; nor to personal influence in " none of us 
liveth to himself." Nevertheless these and very many other 
merely apparent meanings are constantly employed, directly 
and indirectly, as if they were true, by religious teachers. Are 
these expositors in earnest to know what the Scriptures do 
mean and to use them for practical purposes accordingly ? 

It was by this sort of Scripture argument that Clement of 
Alexandria enforced the duty of family religion : " Our Lord 
said that where two or three are gathered in His name, there 
is the true church. Who are these two or three but the father, 
the mother, and the child? " Of a similar sort is the statement 
of Dr. Lovick Pierce, pressed with the desire to prove the 
duty of family worship by the letter of Scripture, that " the 
two conditions of domestic life called lying down and rising 
up [in Deut. vi. 6, 7] cannot mean anything else than family 
worship." One thing, among many others, we who have been 
sent forth by our Lord as Christian teachers should carefully 
observe : while ever increasing in the knowledge of the written 
Word, to keep truth at all times with such knowledge of it as 
we already possess. 

(6) We must not fail to recognize the local and temporary in 
the essential and eternal. Each institution, each command, 
each book of the Bible, had first of all a meaning and purpose 
for the people to whom it was immediately given ; and it may 



142 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

be inapplicable, wholly or partly, to others. When the 
Psalmist says, " The Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want," 
we have no hesitation in applying his words to all godly peo- 
ple ; because he is speaking, not as a Hebrew, nor as a king, 
nor as one of " them of old time," but simply as a follower of 
God. No peculiarities of temperament, position, or circum- 
stances have aught to do with this experience : it is purely 
human and spiritual. But when he says, " Bind the sacrifice 
with cords, even unto the horns of the altar," or, " Let them 
praise His name in the dance," it is only the passing forms of 
religion that he bids the people observe. So far from these 
being incumbent on us, it would be hurtful, and therefore 
wrong, to revive them. The principle is perfectly plain, but 
examples of its violation are numerous. 

There are those who believe that the law of tithes is still 
obligatory upon the people of God (as if the exceeding broad 
commandment of entire consecration were not enough, even 
now that Christ has come) ; or that the Lord's Supper should 
be celebrated with unleavened bread ; or that Christian bap- 
tism involves " going down into the water " ; or that the sev- 
enth day of the week must still be observed as the day of rest ; 
or that we " ought to wash one another's feet " and to " greet 
one another with a holy kiss " ; or that because miracles were 
wrought in the beginning of the Gospel, the same attestation 
of its truth must be continued to the end of time. The Chris- 
tian church for hundreds of years forbade its members to re- 
ceive interest for the loan of money, because this practice was 
forbidden to the Hebrews of the theocracy in their dealing 
with one another. Calvin justified the judicial murder of 
Servetus with arguments " chiefly drawn from the Jewish laws 
against idolatry and blasphemy, and from the examples of 
pious kings of Israel." An Episcopal minister, in the moun- 
tains of Virginia, fell into company with a stranger, who said, 
" They tell me that ministers of your church don't speak to a 
man when they meet him in the road." He was assured that 



EXPOSITION-PRINCIPLES 143 

it was an evil report. " But I tell them," he continued, " that 
if you don't you are only fulfilling the Scripture, 'Salute no 
man by the way.' " All these interpretations, from Calvin's to 
the Virginia mountaineer's, must be classed together. They 
would make the circumstantial real and the temporary eternal. 

The great New Testament example, tragic and appalling, is 
that of the Jews who would not give up the Old Testament 
rites and institutions, the law of Moses, even at the cost of 
rejecting the Cross of Christ, for whose sake Moses received 
his inspiration and wrote his books. 

And now you are ready to say : " It is an impossible require- 
ment. The literal is so interblended with the figurative, and 
the local circumstance with the universal principle, in the 
Scriptures, and besides, it is so difficult to get rid of infirmities 
and partial views — how am I always to tell just what the nat- 
ural and reasonable interpretation of a passage is? " But con- 
sider: who has promised that you shall be able always to tell? 
Truth of all kinds is a gradual discovery and is attended with 
certain possibilities of error, just as the moral life is a growth 
and attended with possibilities of sin. It would be a very 
low idea of biblical interpretation that could be perfectly 
realized in a few months or years ; but here is one whereunto 
you may continually advance as long as you live. And all the 
while you will be living indeed,— increasing in clearness of 
thought, depth of feeling, accuracy of conscience, faithfulness 
of will, and so becoming more and more a child of the light 
and of the day. 



LECTURE IV 

EXPOSITION— PRINCIPLES, EXPOSITORY SERMONS 

TAKING up the principles of exposition for further study, 
I remark : 

2. Scripture must be expounded contextual!}'. Here again 
the reasonableness of the requirement is as evident as the fre- 
quency with which it is violated. It is often a just complaint 
of controversialists that opponents quote them unfairly, — giv- 
ing their words, indeed, but not such other words as are neces- 
sary to bring out the significance of the quotation. How 
severely might the sacred writers rebuke many a Christian 
teacher for quoting words of theirs that appear only in some 
vital texture of thought, as if they were isolated aphorisms! 

There are preachers that seem to act under the delusion 
that to take a text means to wrest it out of its connections in 
the Scripture and take it away, instead of simply knowing it 
where it is and for what it is. 

The division of the Bible into chapters and verses, which, 
as we have seen, has encouraged an uninterpretative reading 
of it, has undoubtedly favored even more this bad exegetical 
habit. Accordingly here also the paragraphing of the Revised 
Version is helpful. 

To prove the weakness of certain more or less common in- 
terpretations, nothing else is necessary than the careful reading 
of the immediate context. Would it not show, for example, 
that Psalm lviii. 3 does not teach universal depravity ? that the 
144 



EXPOSITION— PRINCIPLES, EXPOSITORY SERMONS 145 

contrast in Luke xiii. 24-28 is not between "striving" and 
"seeking," but between making the effort to enter the king- 
dom of heaven now and making it when the day of grace is 
ended? that Christ does not command us in John v. 39 to 
" search the Scriptures," but reminds His unbelieving hearers 
that they do search the Scriptures to find in them eternal life, 
and inconsistently refuse to receive this life from Him? that 
Hebrews xi. 40 makes not the slightest reference to the inter- 
mediate state of the dead? that the invitation of "the Spirit 
and the bride " and of " him that heareth," in Revelation xxii. 
17, is addressed to the Lord Jesus, and not to human souls? 

Here is one source of what might be called the fallacy of 
proof-texts. Passage after passage is cited in support of some 
truth,— or error, as the case may be, — with but the faintest 
reference, or none at all, to the connection in which it appears. 
What sort of argument must that be in which modifying ideas 
and sequences of thought are ignored at every step? It is 
the abuse of a good method. For there is no better way of 
proving the truths of religion than by quoting Scripture testi- 
mony. Even a " Preacher's Text-book " or an " Analysis of 
the Bible," furnishing texts ready to hand on an extensive 
variety of topics, may occasionally be used to advantage. But 
a sensitive and instructed conscience would certainly require 
that we pay due regard to the ethics of quotation,— that we 
examine each passage for ourselves, to determine whether the 
apparent is the real meaning. And to the formation of such 
a judgment a knowledge of the context is indispensable. 

Not only the immediate but the remote context, the scope 
and purport of the book and indeed the general tenor of 
Scripture teaching, must be taken into consideration. The 
expositor should always be able to say, as the example of our 
Lord suggests, " Again it is written." The Bible is one vol- 
ume, but many books. The name is a transliteration, not of 
biblos, but of biblia, — not book, but little books; many in one,— 
a unity of elements and forces,— the same spirit, the same truth, 



146 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

in different degrees and aspects, appearing as a progressive 
revelation in them all. The context of a passage, then, in the 
vital sense of the word, is very comprehensive. Contextual 
exposition requires acquaintance with the Bible as a whole. 
Especially does it require that we keep near in knowledge and 
love to Him in whom the revelation reached its final perfec- 
tion, the Light of the world, whom, if any man follow, he shall 
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. 

So if we read, " But I know that my Redeemer liveth, and 
that He shall stand up at the last upon the earth : and after my 
skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see 
God" (Job xix. 25, 26), we cannot believe the saintly patri- 
arch to be here confessing his faith in " Jesus and the resurrec- 
tion," when such an interpretation would be altogether out of 
touch with the rest of the book. If we read, " The dead praise 
not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence " (Ps. cxv. 
17), we are not to be startled at this touching lamentation, as 
if it meant that death ends all, in the Book from which alone 
we get our knowledge of God and immortality. If Christ says 
to the young ruler, "Why callest thou Me good? there is 
none good but one, that is, God," we cannot understand 
Him to acknowledge a sense of personal unworthiness or sin, 
when His whole life, in word and deed, testifies that " He was 
manifested to take away sins, and in Him is no sin." If the 
apostle asks, " Hath not the potter a right over the clay, from 
the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and an- 
other unto dishonor?" (Rom. ix. 21), we are not to conclude, 
then the will of God is arbitrary and unmoral, and man is in- 
capable of free action, — when the whole Scripture teaching, like 
the very heaven for clearness, shows His infinite righteousness 
and love, and when, on the supposition that man's sense of 
freedom is delusive, every burden laid by the Bible on the 
conscience is a mockery and a deceit. If we read in the Book 
of Kings of Elijah calling down fire from heaven to consume 
the soldiers that the Samaritan king had sent to arrest him, we 



EXPOSITION— PRINCIPLES, EXPOSITORY SERMONS 147 

might suppose the man of God an example in this for all men 
of God in similar circumstances. But when we see the disci- 
ples of Jesus taking this very view of it, and asking Him con- 
cerning an inhospitable Samaritan village, " Lord, wilt Thou 
that we bid fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" 
and hear the rebuke with which He meets their proposal, we 
learn that the followers of the Son of man must be quick 
" not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." If we read 
the Psalmist's prayer for the destruction of his enemies, what- 
ever we may learn from such imprecations, it is not a lesson 
of cruelty and hate, since the law of love to all men, friends 
and enemies, shows plainer and plainer in the Scriptures, till it 
shines like the sun from the face of Jesus. 

The true exegetical method is that of biblical theology ; and 
the most truly biblical exegesis will be the most truly Christo- 
logical. 

3. Exposition must be spiritually true. To miss the spiri- 
tual truth of the Bible, though we should learn perfectly every- 
thing else it contains, would be to miss that for which it all 
was written. It would be to mistake the embroidered purse 
for the silver and gold within. "Sin," "condemnation," 
"pardon," "righteousness," "communion with God," "the 
mind of Christ," "propitiation for sin," — what do these 
words mean? No lexicon can tell us. The learning of a 
Delitzsch or a Lightfoot would be inadequate. No merely 
" natural " experience of life can interpret them. Yet if we do 
not know them we are assuredly unqualified for the pulpit, being 
ignorant of the elemental truths of the Christian religion. 

How, then, are these things to be learned? Our Lord has 
answered the question : " The Holy Spirit, whom the Father 
will send in My name, He shall teach you all things" ; " He 
shall guide you into all the truth " ; " He shall take of Mine, 
and shall declare it unto you." For it is to spiritual knowledge 
that this promise of the infallible Guide applies : not to the 
discovery of all mysteries and all knowledge, — the revolution 



148 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

of the earth, the circulation of the blood in our veins, the asso- 
ciation of ideas, the relative merits of the Calvinistic and the 
Wesleyan system of theology, the authorship of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, the meaning of i Peter hi. 19, 20 (other provi- 
sion has been made for these discoveries) ; but to the ever- 
enlarging knowledge of the life of God in the soul. It is that 
illumination for which Paul prays, out of the depths of his 
Christlike solicitude and love, in behalf of the Ephesian Chris- 
tians : " That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 
glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation 
in the knowledge of Him; having the eyes of your heart 
enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His call- 
ing, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the 
saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us- 
ward who believe." 

How does the Holy Spirit guide us into the truth? By 
quickening our own spiritual life and thus putting us into 
accord and sympathy with spiritual life wherever manifested. 
The roots of all knowledge are in personal experience. It is 
only from what we ourselves are that we can understand 
human nature. It is only in such measure as we have person- 
ally felt the pressure of sin on the conscience that we can know 
what sin is. So with the life of sonship and communion with 
God ; so with all spiritual truth. A noble-hearted Christian 
layman said to me not long since : " I know it is more blessed 
to give than to receive as well as I know anything. No man 
need tell me ; I have felt it many a time ; there is a feeling 
when you do a kind act "—and so on. He knew that word 
of the Lord Jesus by the only satisfactory interpretation and 
evidence, the evidence of Christian experience. Imagine 
Luther expounding the Epistle to the Romans before he knew 
experimentally the truth of justification by faith. When Wes- 
ley was convinced out of the Scriptures that the true faith in 
Christ is attended by a sense of forgiveness and peace, he was 
inclined to believe that, inasmuch as he knew the doctrine 



EXPOSITION-PRINCIPLES, EXPOSITORY SERMONS 149 

only, not the experience, he ought to give up preaching. 
" By no means," said his Moravian friend and teacher, Peter 
Bolder ; " preach faith till you have it, and then because you 
have it you will preach it." In what sense could he preach it 
meantime? 

A physiologist may hear a singer's words, and be able to 
explain the action of his vocal organs, and yet not know one 
tune from another. He may be tone-deaf, — like Dean Stan- 
ley, who would quietly make his apology and leave the room 
when Jenny Lind was about to sing. If God had put the 
spirit of song into his heart he would know. A rhetorician 
may scan and construe a poem, giving the correct technical 
name to each part, and yet be quite insensible to " the soul of 
beauty that makes it music and the soul of thought that 
makes it throb." If God had put the spirit of poetry into his 
heart he would feel the poem's power. In like manner it is 
only the man in whose heart is the kingdom of God, "right- 
eousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost," that can 
know the things of the kingdom. 

It will appear in the exposition of the Scriptures in your 
pulpit whether you are familiarly acquainted with them and 
have " the power and drive of the whole Bible behind every 
sermon " ; whether your knowledge of the text is not simply 
what you have gathered up for the occasion from the com- 
mentaries ; whether your illustrations come through personal 
observation and contact with nature and human life ; whether 
you are a thorough and candid thinker; but with equal evi- 
dence will it appear whether you are living from day to day 
as a son of God and are continually taught of Him. 

So the word we preach is at the same time God's Word in 
the Scriptures and His present truth in our own hearts. If it 
be any other it were better that we tarry and wait till the true 
Christian evangel shall be given us. Doctrine becomes truly 
preachable only when converted into experience. 

To despise linguistic learning, and fancy ourselves none the 



150 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

worse off for having no share in the critical knowledge of the 
Scripture, does not show a spiritual mind. It is the contempt 
of ignorance, and its natural outcome is fanaticism. Through 
what toil of scholarship has every verse of the Bible been laid 
before us! Would it be no help to the understanding of Paul's 
Epistles to the Corinthians to have lived in Corinth at the time 
these letters were received, and to have read them for ourselves 
just as they came from his hand? The New Testament 
scholar is simply a man who is more nearly in some such posi- 
tion than is the ordinary reader. Learning puts us back, as 
far as may be, where the plain, unlettered hearers of Christ 
and His Apostles stood in their day. Herein is its distinctive 
value. But as between an unregenerate Corinthian of Paul's 
day, living for his lusts and knowing nothing but the wisdom 
of this world, though a reader of the apostle's letters, and a 
spiritually minded Christian of America with only the English 
New Testament in his hand,— or, indeed, with no knowledge 
of books whatever,— undoubtedly the latter only would be 
truly instructed and prepared to teach the way of the Lord. 
" And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know 
all things" (i John ii. 20). 

One word more. We cannot hope to have this spiritual 
knowledge if unwilling to pay the price. We must submit to 
be led of the Spirit, however contrary to the desires of the 
flesh and of the mind. And the Spirit will lead us into the 
doing of God's will as the every-day business of life. Obey, 
obey the words of Jesus, and you will learn what they mean. 

Moreover, suffering, keen and protracted, may be necessary. 
For it is often through the thick darkness that the soul is led 
into the fuller light of God. Said John Bunyan in prison : " I 
never had in all my life so great an inlet into the Word of God 
as now ; insomuch that I have often said, were it lawful, I 
could pray for even greater trouble for the greater comfort's 
sake." Your prison-house will not be of the same outward 
sort as the Bedford jail, but it may be equally painful. In- 



EXPOSITION— PRINCIPLES, EXPOSITORY SERMONS lol 

tellectual perplexity, secret griefs, the hand of death, the 
going out of earthly hopes one by one — it will perhaps be 
what you are now least expecting. But you need not ask to 
know. Only, when the time comes, do not draw back and 
rebel. Let the Father have His own way with you. Let 
there be prayer and wrestling and travail of spirit, if God will ; 
let your heart bleed and break. I believe you to be Christian 
men, sincerely desirous of doing the highest good in the world. 
But it may be that you have never thought or felt very deeply. 
Your views of human nature and of divine revelation are com- 
paratively superficial. Do you really wish to know? There 
is no theological seminary on earth in which that desire can be 
gratified. Probably it is only in the school of pain that you can 
make the truth really your own and so become interpreters of 
it to others. The way of the Cross is the way of light. 

4. Is it necessary to add that the expository process in a 
sermon should be what the words themselves imply, — homilet- 
ical? 

On the one hand, a certain amount and kind of explana- 
tion is demanded. No part of the text of which any use is 
made in the sermon should be left in darkness. A brother 
preacher once said to me, " I am going to preach from the 
words, ' Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the 
throne of grace, that we may receive mercy,' " etc. (Heb. iv. 
16). Having had the same passage in mind as a text, and 
not feeling sure of its meaning, I asked, " What do you take 
it to mean? " " Why, it means— prayer" was as definite a re- 
ply as he was prepared to make. Surely there is some specific 
significance in this inspired description of prayer. Similarly, 
in preaching from Colossians i. 1 2 (" Who made us meet to be 
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light "), it is not 
enough simply to use the phrase " the inheritance of the saints 
in light " as synonymous with heaven. Under what particular 
aspect is the heavenly life here spoken of ? Or, again, " a 
crown of life " — just what does this familiar New Testament 



152 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

figure mean? I have often heard it preached about, but never 
explained. 

On the other hand, there is a good deal of commenting in 
the pulpit that is homiletically useless. It occurs chiefly in the 
introduction of the sermon. And the reasons are obvious : it 
is abundantly supplied by the commentaries; it gives the 
preacher's mind a start (coming at a time when he has some 
doubt perhaps about finding enough to say) ; and it seems to 
lay down a solid basis of learning for the discourse. But the 
temptation must be resisted. In relating a narrative for proof 
or illustration, do we mention every detail, or only such cir- 
cumstances as bear upon our purpose? Let the same wise 
economy be practised in exposition. Keep the application of 
the subject always in view, and from the first let there be in- 
telligent movement toward this end. No irrelevant matter, — 
save the occasional side-flashes of impromptu thought, or oc- 
casional digression for some special purpose, — however true 
and excellent in itself. Very precious is time in the pulpit ; 
why devote any of it to that which diverts or wearies attention 
instead of promoting the object before us? 

Evidently, then, the preliminary processes in exegesis — the 
successive steps by which we have reached our conclusion as 
to the meaning of the text — are no proper part of preaching. 
The pulpit-desk is not the study-table. It is not the place for 
prosecuting exegetical inquiries, but only for announcing their 
results. Why refer to the readings of "some very ancient 
manuscripts," or the half-score of parallel passages that you 
have examined, or the views of various " authorities "? Why 
set forth any elaborate array of reasons for the interpretation 
you have to offer? Put the well-baked loaf on the table, and 
give no account of the buying or the baking. 

In a word, nothing, is good out of its place ; therefore we 
must introduce into the sermon such exposition and so much as 
is necessary for the purpose in hand — no more and no other. 



EXPOSITION— PRINCIPLES, EXPOSITORY SERMONS 153 

There are so many passages, especially in the Authorized 
Version, that are commonly misunderstood and misapplied 
that you will need to be on your guard against the popular 
misinterpretation. The following are examples: Genesis vi. 
3; Numbers xii. 3; 2 Kings iv. 26; viii. 13; Psalm ii. 12; 
xlii. 2; xlv. 13; ciii. 9; Proverbs viii. 17; xxii. 6; xxv. 11 ; 
Ecclesiastes xi. 3 ; Isaiah lxiii. 3 ; lxiv. 6 ; Jeremiah iii. 4 ; Joel 
iii. 14; Habakkuk ii. 2; Haggai ii. 7; Zechariah ix. 10; 
John x. 16 ; Acts ii. 47 ; Romans viii. 15 ; xi. 29 ; xii. 11 ; xii. 
19 ; xiv. 23 ; 1 Corinthians iv. 4 ; xv. 37 ; Galatians iii. 24 ; v. 
4 ; Philippians iv. 5 ; Colossians ii. 21; 2 Timothy ii. 15; 
James i. 17. 

II. Expository Sermons. 

I have already said that sometimes there is so much expo- 
sition in a sermon that it may be called, by way of distinction, 
expository. Now the general principles of exposition apply, of 
course, to such a sermon, just as to any other. But in addi- 
tion I would offer a few specific suggestions. 

First of all, do not fear lest the larger use of Scripture in the 
pulpit, for which the expository sermon stands, should repel 
the people as a dry and out-of-date mode of preaching. Even 
if it should, duty might demand that you disregard their 
preferences ; but it will not. The people are at least as likely 
to grow weary of your own reasonings and speculations. For 
although most persons read the Bible very little themselves, 
still they reverence its transcendent authority and know some- 
thing of its treasures of truth, and in church they are ready to 
hear it expounded. They would rather the preacher should 
keep close to the words of psalmists, of apostles, of our Lord, 
and open out their meaning, than that he should needlessly 
multiply the distance between these words and his own. The 
distance will be great enough at best, for we have not the liv- 
ing presence of the sacred writers. We have not even their 
autographs ; only through transcriptions and translations can 
we approach them. But the nearer our approach and the 



154 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

greater our competence to explain their revelation of the mind 
of God, the more heartily will our claim to a hearing be 
acknowledged. And if we be not merely intelligent or scholarly, 
but also spiritually minded interpreters,— preaching the living 
Word that is in the written Word, — I cannot see how any form 
of preaching could be more real or quickening or impressive 
than the expository. Does Dr. Joseph Parker fail to apply the 
Gospel to the present circumstances and needs of men? does 
he fill an antiquated and unattractive pulpit? And yet the 
substance of his preaching for many years has been published 
in twenty-seven large volumes of exposition, — "The People's 
Bible." 

Again, do not fear the lack of expository materials. It 
may seem to you now very difficult, on a text of moderate 
length, to find enough to say by way of exposition for a half- 
hour's discourse. But such a fear will seldom be realized. 
Read Leighton's exposition of the First Epistle of Peter. It 
is true to its title, a " Practical Commentary." The author 
does not leave the text to follow whatever good ideas it may 
incidentally suggest. He seems to be uniformly true to the 
principle acknowledged in his comment on chapter ii., verse 
25 : " Not to press the comparison, or, as it is too usual with 
commentators, to strain it beyond the flurfvse, in reference to 
our lost estate, this is all or the main circumstance wherein the 
resemblance with sheep holds,— our wandering, as forlorn and 
exposed to destruction, like a sheep that has strayed and wan- 
dered from the fold." And yet the exposition of the first 
chapter only would fill over a hundred and fifty pages. Your 
difficulty, when you have acquired some skill as an expositor, 
is likely to be other than the lack of materials. It will prob- 
ably be the lack of willingness to leave out all that is homilet- 
ically unsuitable, and of facility in setting forth what remains 
in terse, vivid, and applicatory speech. 

And now more particularly as to the expository sermon. 
Like any other sermon, it must have unity of idea and a more 



EXPOSITION— PRINCIPLES, EXPOSITORY SERMONS 155 

or less elaborate structure. It is not a running commentary ; 
it is not even such an exposition as many of Chrysostom's 
homilies or Robertson's lectures on Corinthians. Some of 
these admirable productions are sermons ; others, truer to their 
titles, are homilies or lectures. 

The opinion that the expository sermon is simply a Scripture 
exposition of a certain required length, and not a truly syn- 
thetic discourse, has been encouraged by the erroneous prac- 
tice of classing it as a coordinate species with the topical and 
the textual sermon. To distinguish it from the latter, it has 
been described as not requiring regular divisions, though in 
exceptional cases it may have them ; whereas the real distinc- 
tion is in the character of the subject-matter. It is as desir- 
able that the expository sermon should have a distinctly stated 
proposition and distinctly stated divisions as that any other 
variety of the textual sermon should have them. Its sole 
distinctive feature is that the subject-matter is predominantly 
exegetical. Hence there is no more propriety in coordinating 
it with the topical and the textual sermon than there would be 
in thus classifying the argumentative, or the descriptive, or the 
illustrative, or the hortatory sermon. 

Good examples may be found in Wesley's series of exposi- 
tory discourses on our Lord's Sermon on the Mount. The 
fifth of the series (on Matt. v. 17-20) has for its subject — not 
expressed in any one well-defined statement, but, according to 
Wesley's custom, plainly indicated — "Christianity Not a New 
Religion " ; and each verse of the text is taken " for a distinct 
head of discourse." The sixth sermon is on "The Necessity 
of a Pure Intention in our Actions " (Matt. vi. 1-15) ; and the 
divisions are: "(1) With regard to works of mercy (verses 
1-4). (2) From works of charity or mercy our Lord proceeds 
to those which are termed works of piety (verses 5-8). (3) 
After having taught the true nature and ends of prayer, our 
Lord subjoins an example of it (verses 9-15)." The divisions 
of the twelfth sermon, on " False Prophets " (Matt. vii. 15-20), 



156 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

are preannounced as follows : " A caution this of the utmost 
importance. That it may the more effectually sink into our 
hearts, let us inquire, first, who these false prophets are ; sec- 
ondly, what appearance they put on ; and thirdly, how we 
may know what they really are, notwithstanding their fair ap- 
pearance." 

Now a common defect in the biblical expositor, as we had 
occasion to note when considering the topic of contextual 
exposition, is the failure to recognize the continuity of thought. 
The tendency is to dislocate the body of truth at every joint ; 
to detach from its connections every verse, every clause, that 
one is not compelled to take as part of a continuous discourse, 
instead of taking as part of a continuous discourse every verse 
or clause that one is not compelled to regard as disconnected. 
In a somewhat varied experience as to subjects of instruction, 
I have had less satisfactory work done by students in the 
exegesis of the New Testament than in any other subject ; and 
of this work the least satisfactory part has been that of trac- 
ing out lines of thought in the discourses of our Lord and in 
the Epistles. Similarly in the pulpit the Bible as a whole — 
the particular book, the paragraph, even the text as a whole 
— seems frequently to have left but the slightest impression on 
the preacher's mind. 

Here, then, is something to which special attention needs to 
be given in expository preaching. Select a text that has unity ; 
set forth its generic idea, then the main sub-ideas of which 
this is made up, then their amplification,— just as in the case 
of any other textual sermon. In a word, do not let the pre- 
dominance throughout of exposition impair the unity and 
order of the discourse. Remember, one great truth rising 
above all others brought into association with it, shining 
steadily on in this and that aspect, and with highest intensity 
at the last, — something of this sort must be your directive idea 
in the making of the sermon. 

Let me illustrate with another example. Suppose the text 



EXPOSITION-PRINCIPLES, EXPOSITORY SERMONS 157 

to be Colossians iv. 2-6. Here is a variety of topics, — prayer, 
watching, thanksgiving, preaching the Gospel, wise conduct 
toward the unconverted, redeeming the time, Christian con- 
versation. And we can easily imagine an expository discourse 
that would simply open up and apply these various topics, 
showing little or no connection between them. But it is not 
thus that Dr. Maclaren treats the passage in " The Expositor's 
Bible." The subject of his sermon is given in its title, " Pre- 
cepts for the Innermost and Outermost Life," and is set forth 
as follows : " These last advices touch the two extremes of life, 
the first of them having reference to the hidden life of prayer, 
and the second and third to the outward, busy life of the 
market-place and the street. That bringing together of the 
two extremes seems to be the link of connection here. . . . 
These two sides of experience and duty are often hard to blend 
harmoniously. . . . Here we may find, in some measure, 
the principle of reconciliation between their antagonistic 
claims. . . . Continual prayer is to blend with unwearied 
action. . . . 'Continue steadfastly in prayer,' and withal let 
there be no unwholesome withdrawal from the duties and 
relationships of the outer world, but let prayer pass into, first, 
a wise walk, and second, an ever-gracious speech." The 
divisions are : " (i) So we have here, first, an exhortation to a 
hidden life of constant prayer. (2) We have here, next, a 
couple of precepts, which spring at a bound from the inmost 
secret of the Christian life to its circumference, and refer to 
the outward life in regard to the non-Christian world, enjoin- 
ing, in view of it, a wise walk and a gracious speech." And 
under these two main ideas, complementary to each other, 
every clause, phrase, word, of those five verses is skilfully in- 
troduced and forcibly expounded. The variety remains, but 
the unity also is made manifest. 

And now, if you be inclined to ask, " Shall we always be 
governed by this principle of unity in expository discourse?" 
I will answer that the Christian preacher is not in bondage in 



158 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

such a matter. If there be unity of feeling and purpose, this 
will often be sufficient. Take the sermons of the Rev. John 
McNeill, which are nearly all expository, as examples. Their 
author describes them as " inartistic, inelegant, structureless." 
But they are not so. Certainly they are by no means dis- 
jointed and scattering. The preacher is not thinking about 
" unity," but he is too much in earnest to be without a theme 
or to wander far from it. His text is his theme, and its differ- 
ent parts are taken up and expounded usually in the order in 
which they occur. These are his " divisions." He prefers a 
Scripture narrative, and pays more attention to its suggestions 
than to its teachings. But he so handles the text, with his 
evangelical determination and fervor, and his free, flaming, 
imaginative home-thrusts of speech, as to make the impression 
of it, one whole and strong impression, on the hearer's soul. 

Then, again, if there should seem to be good reason for 
choosing a text in which you can perceive no unifying idea, 
enjoy your liberty— and lecture. This may occur in a series 
of expository discourses on a book of Scripture, — the limited 
time at your disposal requiring that you should sometimes take 
two or more texts in one; or it may occasionally be done for the 
sake of informality or of variety. But know at least what you 
are doing. Do not allow the ideal of the sermon to fall. Do 
not promote an exception to the rank of a rule. Do not for- 
get that in the world of mind, as in nature, a unity is a higher 
form of being than a mass. Accustom yourself to logical— 
that is to say, correct— thinking, construct your discourses 
accordingly, and you may be trusted to use your liberty with- 
out abusing it. 

Read Bernard's " Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament," Dr. 
Richard M. Smith's "Studies in the Greek New Testament." 



LECTURE V 

ARGUMENT— LIMITATIONS, POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 

BESIDES exposition, there are other processes, each 
bringing in its appropriate material, in the making of the 
sermon ; for the sprouting seed is not the tree. It is one of 
these that we are now to study. 

First, however, I must remind you that the term exposition, 
which I have used in the sense of exegesis, is used in a much 
larger sense by writers on rhetoric. It is made to include all 
that in common language would be called explanation; that is 
to say, the exposition of topics as well as of writings. In this 
larger sense, also, it is evidently a homiletic process, and as 
such deserves attention. For the preacher must explain ideas, 
truths, and duties, as well as Scripture texts. The explanation 
of topics, however, enters so largely into certain other pro- 
cesses, to be treated later, — such as description, narration, 
illustration, division, — that it hardly seems to call for a sepa- 
rate treatment. Passing, therefore, from Exposition, let us take 
up the subject of Argument. 

To reason is to draw inferences from knowledge of any sort 
already in our possession ; and reasoning expressed in language 
is argument. It need hardly be said that this intellectual pro- 
cess, like all others, is performed, not by a gifted few, but by 
all rational minds. It is also evident that this is one of the 
processes in the development of the sermon. Finding certain 
statements in the Scriptures, certain facts in my own experi- 
159 



160 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ence, and certain first principles of truth in my mind, I say, 
" These things being so, something follows, — this and that." It 
is thus that systems of theology, doctrinal and practical, are 
built up ; it is thus, in part, that sermons are constructed. 

Now the necessity that is upon us, in many instances, of rea- 
soning in order to reach the truth is rather humbling than 
otherwise,— a sign of mental inertness and incapacity. It is 
taking the railway train to cross the continent, instead of flash- 
ing to our destination like the sunbeams. We are filled with 
admiration at the long series of calculations and deductions by 
which Newton made his sublime discovery ; but what if he 
could have seen the whole truth at once, as with the glance of 
an eye? Intuition is better than logic, the seer greater than 
the logician. Still, as on many subjects the human intellect 
cannot rise above the necessity of reasoning, to reason well is 
a mark of comparative intellectual power and of influence 
over other minds. 

Let us not expect too much from argument. To pursue a 
thorough and comprehensive course of reasoning, even in the 
track of a leader, is what very few hearers will submit to, and 
what few, indeed, are capable of. Besides, a man may be 
rationally convinced of the truths of religion while his heart 
remains indifferent and his will unconverted. But to slight 
and disparage the argumentative element of preaching on these 
accounts would be to depreciate a part because it is not the 
whole, or something because it is not something else. Con- 
viction is not persuasion, but it is very often the basis, the 
necessary condition, of the persuasive appeal. In fact, it 
may of itself give rise to motives that do persuade ; so that 
even an exclusively argumentative sermon might reach not 
only the intellect of the hearer, but also his heart and will. 
Moreover it is not always useless to prove to a man that 
which he already believes. The proof may confirm his belief 
by making it more reasonable and intelligent. You believed, 
for example, that the method of divine revelation is gradual ; 



ARGUMENT— LIMITATIONS, POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 161 

but after reading Bernard's " Progress of Doctrine in the New- 
Testament " you believed it more strongly. Your conscious- 
ness of the truth was brightened, your opinion solidified into 
conviction. 

As to the popular idea that in evangelistic work only the 
fiery exhortation of a Whitefield or the sanctified common sense 
of a Moody is likely to be effective, it is noteworthy that the 
three chief revivalists of their day, Jonathan Edwards, John 
Wesley, and Charles G. Finney, were distinctively argumenta- 
tive preachers. 

There is, indeed, an undercurrent of argument, a continuity 
of thought, in all rational discourse. It is, for the most part, 
unconscious to both speaker and hearer — like the grammati- 
cal relations of the words. Conscious or unconscious, it must 
be there. For what is the very first requirement in planning 
a discourse but that its different parts shall be disposed in a 
natural, reasonable, logical order? Hence the development, 
or amplification, of its several divisions is by some writers 
called the " argument." The same name has been given to 
the outline of an elaborate poem, such as Paradise Lost. 
To have the successive parts of a discourse logically incon- 
gruous with one another is a blunder like that of anachron- 
isms in a writer, or that of the school-boy artist in whose 
pencil sketches a rich man's mansion and an Indian wigwam 
appear in the same landscape. It is not necessary that such 
words and phrases as " therefore," " consequently," " by 
parity of reasoning," "from these considerations we infer," 
and so on, should occur, in order to disclose the presence of 
reasoning. A simple "so " or "then " may be the sign of it, 
and it may exist where no causal connectives, formal or in- 
formal, are used. 

Often a single sentence will contain and suggest a whole 
argument, premises and conclusion,— its force concentrating, 
perhaps, in some one emphasized word. If you should say, 
e.g., "The visionaries expect success in the enterprise," the 



162 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

thought conveyed in your one brief sentence would be that (a) 
clear-headed persons do not expect the enterprise to succeed ; 
[b) where such persons do not expect success it is unlikely to 
occur; and (c) therefore the enterprise in question is in all 
probability doomed to failure. 

An argument may even be condensed into a single logical 
term. Such an expression, e.g., as " the organism of society " 
is not only susceptible of a prepositional form, but glows with 
the energy of argument. The force of it is, '' Society is an 
organism ; therefore " — whatever inference the analogy may 
seem to justify. 

I. Limitations. 

As already intimated, the argumentative element of the ser- 
mon moves within its own restricted sphere, which is not hard 
to recognize ; and it may be worth while to spend a few min- 
utes in noting more particularly some of its limitations. 

i. Formal argument, unlike exposition, is not distinctive of 
Christian preaching) — even as it is not distinctive of the Bible. 
Much that we preach requires no proving to our congrega- 
tions. It is already believed by them as biblical history or 
doctrine, and needs ordinarily but to be explained and en- 
forced. Or its appeal is to the primary faiths of the human 
heart, the testimony from without being confirmed by that of 
the moral sense, the witness within. The preacher's attitude 
is not that of the advocate before the court so much as that 
of the ancient herald publishing the will of the sovereign ; that 
of a teacher before his class ; that of John the Baptist, a voice 
proclaiming the Holy and Mighty One, whom to know is to 
believe in. There may be much good reasoning in a sermon, 
but it is never to be forgotten that the chief note of Christian 
preaching is not argumentation, but prophesying. 

In moral reasoning (which comprises not only the reasoning 
of the pulpit, but ninety-nine hundredths of all that is done in 
the world) there is always something that might be said on the 
other side. But in the preacher's audience no reply is per- 



ARGUMENT-LIMITATIONS, POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 1G3 

mitted. To substitute a debate for a sermon would shock the 
Christian conscience of any community. It is because the pul- 
pit is felt to be, not distinctively for argument, but for teaching 
and testimony, for proclamation. As Vinet has said, "The 
privilege assured to the preacher of occupying the auditory by 
himself, of having to combat only silent adversaries, would be 
an exorbitant and absurd privilege if the preacher be not re- 
garded as speaking in the name of God, and as repeating the 
oracles of inspired wisdom, in his developments and applica- 
tions." 

2. Controversial sermons are to be regarded as rare exceptions. 
As boy poets are inclined to try their hand first of all upon a 
tragedy or an epic, so young preachers sometimes begin their 
ministry with discourses on the evidences of Christianity, or 
with some other defense of fundamental truth. Put it off ten 
years, and then, should you omit it altogether, the full proof 
of your ministry will probably not be thereby hindered. The 
same remark applies, with added force, to sectarian contro- 
versies. 

When the exception occurs, and such preaching becomes 
necessary, the preacher has special need not only of the com- 
petent scholarly and logical equipment, but of that wisdom 
which is from above,— that he may not be unfair or petulant, 
that he may not argufy instead of arguing, that he may not 
set victory and reputation above righteousness and truthfulness 
and truth. The bane of controversy is its tendency, except in 
the case of the noblest minds, to degenerate from the high 
inquiry, What is truth? into a petty wrangle as to who is right. 
The controvertist belittles himself, both as a thinker and as a 
man, by indulgence in such contentions. They belong to the 
same controversial order as the dispute of the disciples in the 
" upper room," on the night preceding their Lord's crucifixion, 
concerning personal preeminence in the church. No doubt 
each could give some good reason why he should be chief 
among his brethren; but the vanity and selfishness of it all! 



164 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

" Hold the pattern of sound words which thou hast heard 
of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus " (2 Tim. 
i- 13)- 

In a formal attack upon error from the pulpit the preacher 
must also remember that he runs the risk of disturbing more 
minds than he satisfies, by informing them of wrong notions 
whose very existence they have heretofore lived in happy 
ignorance of. Remember, any novel idea, whether rational or 
fanciful, has one attraction which to many minds is a fascina- 
tion,— its novelty ; and that no theory, argument, or belief will 
be regarded by your hearers as unworthy of consideration 
when their attention has been deliberately called to it in the 
pulpit. No wise minister would speak to his congregation of 
vices that were almost, if not altogether, unknown in the com- 
munity, for the sake of proving that they are vices and showing 
their evil consequences. " The which I will not tell you, lest 
ye should do the like," said Hugh Latimer, with character- 
istic mother-wit, alluding to vicious practices prevalent in the 
village of his boyhood. Does not the principle apply equally 
well to doctrinal errors? Robert Hall sadly confesses that, 
after the delivery of a series of sermons on the doctrine of the 
Trinity, he was surprised to find that he had for the first time 
in his congregation a small party of Arians, Sabellians, and so 
on. In other words he actually caused certain theological dis- 
eases by imagining their existence and attempting to cure them. 

Incidentally and indirectly there should be much in your 
ordinary preaching to prove the truth of Christianity, and even 
of your own particular form of belief. This will be not only 
your commonest, but probably your most effectual, argumen- 
tation. 

As to offensive personalities in controversy, the rhetoric of 
abuse, though once far from uncommon in the pulpit, there is 
but one class of men now from whom they should be expected, 
—those who have not the spirit of Christian gentlemen. 

3. All necessity of argument may be saved, in many instances, 



ARGUMENT-LIMITATIONS, POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 165 

by a clear and accurate definition of terms. A large proportion 
of controversy is logomachy : it is only the words of the op- 
posing parties that are at war, the ideas being substantially 
alike and peaceable. The remedy — and, better still, the pre- 
ventive — is definition. 

Let me illustrate. May a man know himself to be a child 
of God ? " If one says he knows it, that of itself is good 
proof that he is not God's child." " On the contrary, if he 
cannot say he knows it, that is proof that he is not God's 
child." These are the two extreme positions— not to mention 
intermediate ones — on this momentous question of personal 
religion. But as between deeply experienced Christians, who 
are surely the persons best qualified to reach a definitive con- 
clusion on the subject, let it be understood in what sense the 
word know is employed, and the controversy is over. Do we 
use it to express such certainty as attends the conclusion of a 
mathematical demonstration, the contrary of which is not only 
false, but impossible, or such as comes from a consciousness 
of filial love and trust toward God, and a course of conduct in 
harmony with this sense of divine sonship ? Again : is conscience 
infallible? Let it first be determined what is included in the 
term conscience. Is it that which gives us the feeling of obli- 
gation, together with the judgment of individual acts as mor- 
ally right or wrong? If so, we shall never be able to establish 
for conscience the claim of infallibility, because men are con- 
stantly making mistakes concerning the moral Tightness of acts, 
and a thousand cases of casuistry occur in which the wisest 
and best minds will acknowledge their darkness. But if, on 
the other hand, by conscience we mean that constituent of our 
nature which expresses itself simply in the feeling of obliga- 
tion, with the consequent feelings of approval and disapproval, 
— the sense of duty, the "authoritative impulse," — then the 
question as to its fallibility has no meaning. The epithet 
fallible is appropriate only to the judgment, not to a feeling, 
not to a command. 



166 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

The theologian who will give the perfect definition of such 
terms as "sin," "depravity," "regeneration," "holiness," 
" sanctification," "perfection," will do much toward putting 
an end to controversy. 

Now the truths and experiences of the Christian life are so 
great as to pass far beyond both the reach of our words and 
the comprehension of our minds. " Unspeakable," "passeth 
knowledge," "passeth understanding," "unsearchable," "past 
finding out," — are some of the apostolic descriptions of them. 
Nor let us for a moment imagine it any mark of uncertainty 
or unreality in a truth, that it cannot be made to lie in well- 
defined shape before the percipient mind. The number two 
may be known much more distinctly than two trillions. The 
latter number we can know only in a feeble, symbolic way. 
Is it therefore less real and significant than the other? How 
much distinctness is there in our knowledge of the material 
universe as a whole? Yet there can be no doubt that the 
universe exists, and that its greatness is incalculably beyond 
our farthest-reaching thought. Much more must it be so with 
the knowledge of spiritual realities, — of the nature of God, 
the atonement of Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit in the 
soul. 

Nevertheless, we may apprehend that which we cannot 
comprehend. The same apostle that said, " Now we see in a 
mirror, darkly," made the rejoicing confession, "Yea verily, 
and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." Let us not try to de- 
fine the indefinable. But it is incumbent on us as theologians, 
while acknowledging the limits of religious thought and stand- 
ing in awe before the ever-present Unknown and Infinite, to 
gain clearer and clearer ideas of Christian truth as God has 
been pleased to reveal it. Dr. Samuel Harris, in " The Self- 
Revelation of God," has said : " It is true that religion has 
suffered from over-definition in theology, in the effort to give 
an exact answer to every question that can arise in all the 



ARGUMENT-LIMITATIONS, POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 167 

finest and most complicated ramifications of thought. It is 
true that on many points which come into view, in the study 
of God and His works, suggestion reveals more than defini- 
tion. It is true that the heart is often wiser than the head. 
. . . But in all this there is no justification of loose thinking, 
of a mysticism of the feelings unpurified and unverified by 
thought. Man by his rational constitution is impelled to seek, 
and is under moral obligation to seek, the utmost attainable 
clearness, precision, completeness, and unity of his knowledge 
of God." It is certainly true, then, that when we attempt a 
course of reasoning on such subjects, reason requires that we 
define as accurately as possible the sense in which we employ 
our terms. And, moreover, in the case of a theological con- 
troversy, when both parties are held strictly to this require- 
ment, it will often transpire that the supposed necessity for the 
contention has disappeared. 

Similar to definition is any clear statement and illustration 
of a subject. Said a chief justice concerning one of Daniel 
Webster's early speeches : " That young man's statement of 
his cause was an unanswerable argument for its justice." Why 
should it not be so in the case of any advocate who is on the 
right side ? Which have you to preach, truth or error? Well, 
truth is very often self-evidencing. It needs only to be seen 
in order to be believed. Show it as it is; let it commend 
itself. Oftener perhaps than we think, what men want is to 
have some truth of religion clearly and impressively set before 
them, — exposition, not argument. 

II. Positive Principles. 

And now let us pass from this negative view to the consider- 
ation of some positive principles in the argumentative process 
of preaching. 

i. It is real, not merely verbal. It employs words to rep- 
resent things. At first blush this might be supposed to be true 
of all reasoning, but in fact it is far from being so. One can 
reason correctly without attaching any distinct meaning to the 



168 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

terms employed, — even to a single subject or predicate in any 
of his propositions. \i y is equal to x. and z is equal to_y, it 
must follow that z is equal to x, though we should not have 
the slightest idea of what x, y, and z stand for. They may 
mean anything in the whole universe of thought; in every 
case the argument is absolutely perfect. 

And may we not use a kind of symbolism different from 
x, y, and z — may we not use words — with logical correctness, 
and yet with but a dim, uncertain knowledge, or none at all, 
of their meaning? In reading on some subject you have 
probably caught yourself passing over words, from time to 
time, with whose meaning you were unacquainted. To learn 
it you would have had to consult a dictionary. You did not 
take the trouble to do this ; and one reason was that without 
it you were able to follow the argument, and this mental move- 
ment, together with the rhythm of the sentences and some stir 
of the imagination, was a sufficient satisfaction. You are 
reading, e.g., that no one who openly advocated the doctrines 
of mysticism could escape the odium ecclesiasticum, and that 
the Archbishop of Cambray was an open advocate of these 
doctrines ; and, though you should not understand the mean- 
ing of any one of the three terms of the argument, you are 
fully able to draw the conclusion that the Archbishop of Cam- 
bray could not escape the odium ecclesiasticum. Nevertheless, 
your reading, though a logical process, has its beginning and 
its end in darkness. 

And what the reader is thus doing the writer of the argu- 
ment may himself have done, though probably in a smaller 
measure. He may have mistaken the meaning of his own 
terms, or have had but a hazy notion of it, and yet have used 
them correctly in their relations to each other, and satisfied 
himself with that. Thus we have words as substitutes for 
ideas, phrases for facts, instead of words, according to their 
true purpose, as signs of ideas. Indeed, there seems to be 
for many minds a subtle charm, due partly, no doubt, to per- 



ARGUMENT— LIMITATIONS, POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 169 

sonal vanity and partly to ignorant wonder, in big words of 
unexplored meaning. With the lifting of the veil the attrac- 
tion would cease : the imagination could no longer glorify 
them at will. 

Here, again, the remedy and preventive is definition, — the 
lifting of the veil. Define your terms, and then, if need be, 
the terms of your definition, and so on till you reach the thing 
itself; which will always be something that is known intui- 
tively. Without the exercise of some such care and pains you 
are in danger, as an inexperienced thinker, of constantly mis- 
taking words for things ; and all the more in danger if unwilling 
to be convinced of your liability to the illusion. 

2. It is constructive. The destructive is much easier, in 
every sphere of action, from the mutilation of a book to the 
exposure of deficiencies and errors in a philosophical system. 
Any child can brandish and apply a torch ; but to handle build- 
ing tools successfully is an art to be learned. Children may 
destroy ; men only can create. Some one is sadly learning 
for himself every day the truth of the old observation that a 
good reputation, built up through the uniform uprightness of 
years, may be destroyed by the misconduct of an hour. It 
may be stained by an idle, gossiping tongue. With wonderful 
ease do a large class of persons pick flaws in the characters of 
even the most venerable men in the community. It is an 
unfailing social amusement. Now very close akin to this fault- 
finding spirit is the disposition to criticise the opinions and 
beliefs of others. It seems to be as natural and easy to find 
fault with beliefs as with conduct. The average youth will 
state offhand objections to the reasoned convictions of the 
most philosophic minds. So we need not be surprised to 
find something of this spirit on the rostrum and in the pulpit. 

To denounce a sin, to show up the absurdity of an error, 
to combat an antagonist, kindles a latent fire in the speaker's 
soul that is quite independent of the object to be accomplished 
by the argument. It is the joy of battle ; and some speakers, 



170 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

even some preachers, seem to be fully themselves only when 
under its influence. They speak feebly, save when there is 
something, or some person, to speak against. To be on the 
war-path, — this of itself awakens a savage delight. Bishop 
McTyeire has said, in some admirable " Observations " on 
himself : " Being rather phlegmatic, I need the stimulus of an 
argument, and the excitement of combating opposition, and 
the difficulty of resolving doubts and objections, — drawing all 
by a pleasing and well-sustained warmth toward a desired 
conclusion. My naturally heavy temperament requires the 
buoyancy of a strong current to uphold me, else I sink like 
lead to the bottom." Undoubtedly allowance must be made 
for a phlegmatic temperament; but the better sources of 
warmth and animation in preaching the Gospel of the Son of 
God are not " the excitement of combating opposition," nor 
even "the difficulty of resolving doubts and objections." 

The great characteristic work of the preacher is far more 
difficult. It demands a larger knowledge, a deeper faith, a 
freer intellectual energy, a more patient and strenuous love. 
It is affirmative rather than negative. It is to prove rather 
than to disprove, to build up rather than to tear down. The 
overthrow of error is only preliminary ; or oftener it follows 
of itself upon the establishment of truth. The true preacher 
has got possession of a word of life, and his heart is aglow 
with intense and steady zeal to communicate it to others. His 
first thought concerning them is not, What special forms of 
error do they hold? but, Have they the truth? And his prin- 
cipal use for argument will be to make a way, in the convic- 
tions of his hearers, for this positive gospel which has become 
the light and strength of his own heart. Thus not only will 
he gain a less prejudiced hearing, the errorist not being put on 
the defensive, but the false will be dispossessed by the posi- 
tively true. The soul will not be left empty, swept, and gar- 
nished for other intruders, but will be occupied already by its 
rightful proprietor, the spirit of truth. The inculcation of 



ARGUMENT-LIMITATIONS, POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 171 

truth is the one effective and perfect method of refuting error. 
It is analogous to the overcoming of evil with good in the 
moral sphere. 

When called on to oppose error directly, — "to banish and 
drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to 
God's Word,"— the preacher will recognize frankly whatever 
fragments of truth may be found giving vitality to the false 
doctrine. He will love the truth so well that he can thus 
recognize it among its counterfeits. He will love the misled 
soul, and will offer his argument not merely with unyielding 
conviction, but with friendliness of manner, as not to an enemy, 
but a brother. Even here his ultimate and ever-present aim 
will be positive, organific,— not the enfeeblement or subversion 
of faith, but its establishment upon a sure foundation. The 
familiar and glorious New Testament example is that of Paul 
before the Athenians. The large-hearted apostle did not first 
of all denounce their idolatry. There was something in it to 
commend, some blind struggle upward toward the divine ; 
and in the most courteous and conciliatory manner does he 
make mention of this (Acts xvii. 22, 23). It is an example 
for every Christian missionary, for every Christian pastor, to 
follow. 

There are two kinds of negative argument, or refutation, — 
the defensive and the aggressive. In the former we refute 
the objections to our own position ; in the latter we disprove the 
position , or at least the positive arguments, of an opponent. The 
former is oftener called for in the pulpit than the latter. Not 
only will there be captious and unreasonable opposition to 
your message in certain minds, but in others there will be 
honest and rational objections. To refute these may be the 
last and decisive step in the establishment of the truth. 

Objections may be either theoretical or practical, — that is to 
say, directed against either a doctrine or a precept. 

We may expect to meet with practical objections to Chris- 
tian truth continually. The excuses of the impenitent sinner, 



172 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

of the tippler, of the worshiper of money, of the place-seeker, 
of the idler, will become extremely familiar to you before long. 
If you can refute them, as occasion may seem to require, fairly 
and fully, it will be a good work. If you can do this not sim- 
ply by arid logic, but from a soul penitently aware of its own 
similar faults and tendencies, and deeply stirred with hatred 
of sin, with love of virtue, and with enthusiastic good will and 
fidelity to your fellow-men, it will be the perfect work of truth 
and love. 

Sometimes the objection may be not only refuted, but 
made to prove the very position which it was designed to dis- 
prove. Thus out of his own mouth the objector is condemned. 
For example, if a Christian decline to engage in the temper- 
ance cause, or in any other organized agency to improve the 
physical, social, and moral condition of his fellows, on the 
ground that the great business of the Christian is to bring men 
individually to Christ, it would be easy to show that this of 
itself is a reason for such agencies, inasmuch as they effec- 
tually prepare the way for the Gospel. It is the perfection of 
prowess and skill in war to capture the guns of the enemy and 
turn them upon himself. 

Note also that there is a fallacy of objections. That is to 
say, it may be assumed that a proposition against which strong 
objections can be urged must be untrue; and such an as- 
sumption cannot be for a moment admitted. There may be 
unanswerable reasons urged against each of two contradictory 
propositions, whereas one or the other must necessarily be 
true. Do not consider yourself under obligation, therefore, 
to answer every apparently reasonable objection that may be 
made to the doctrines you have been sent forth to preach. 
Candidly acknowledge, if need be, that in this or that objec- 
tion there is some force which you are unable to repel. It 
will not injure, but will rather advance, the cause of truth to 
which your life has been devoted. 



LECTURE VI 

ARGUMENT— POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 

RESUMING the subject of argument as to its positive 
. principles, I remark : 

3. Like all eloquence, it is colloquial. Two persons are 
required. The hearer must respond to the successive steps of 
the proof either for or against; and the speaker, in intellectual 
and moral sympathy with the hearer, must recognize his 
answer and endeavor to satisfy his demand. 

Otherwise the speaker is arguing, not with a kindred soul, 
but off into a void, without even " Echo answering half asleep." 
This occurs whenever, for any cause, the argument is unadapted 
to the state of the hearer's mind. In such cases, for example, 
as the following : 

(a) When the belief combated is not held by any person in 
the congregation. No one is likely to care for such a discussion. 
It need not be cared for. It may be a thoroughly logical 
monologue, and as such may yield a certain pleasure to the 
speaker; but inasmuch as he has it all to himself and is not 
speaking with a voice to which other voices can be expected 
to respond, it is not preaching. 

{b) When the preacher is offering the usual proofs, he himself 
having but a second-hand knowledge of them, in support of 
some cardinal truth about which his hearers have no doubts to 
be dispelled. He must bring forward new proofs, or set the 
old ones in new light, or at least feel some fresh and strong 
personal conviction, if he would waken the answering chords 
173 



174 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

in the souls before him. There is even danger of a response 
the exact opposite of that which he desires. He may provoke 
doubt, — somewhat as a man does by repeated asseverations 
that he is telling the truth concerning some matter of fact. A 
simple " yea " or " nay " is more convincing. Perhaps as 
effectual a method as any for raising a mist of uncertainty in 
men's minds concerning such essential Christian verities as the 
nature and work of Christ, the immortality of man, and the 
existence of God, would be to give frequent preachments of 
this kind of argumentation. The story is told of an English 
bishop, that, after the delivery of a series of discourses on this 
last great theme, he asked a plain, uneducated member of his 
congregation as to the effect of the discussion upon his faith, 
and received the unexpected reply, " Well, my lord, I must 
say I still believe there is a God." 

(c) When the preacher answers objections that are not in 
the minds of the congregation, passing by the actual objections 
without notice. We have here an instance of the well-known 
practice of setting up a man of straw and triumphantly laying it 
low. We can answer any arguments, questions, or strictures 
that are brought forward, provided we are allowed to bring them 
forward ourselves. A young theologian wrote a piece in which 
he put sundry objections to Christianity into the mouth of a 
pagan, and demonstrated their utter futility one by one, leaving 
his imaginary antagonist not a leg to stand on. But his wise old 
preceptor, to whom he showed the discourse for criticism, kindly 
disclosed its fatal defect with the remark, '' You should choose 
a more clever pagan next time, my son." There is no more 
appropriate reasoning in the pulpit than that which deals with 
the sinner's excuses for his sins and impenitence. But an 
indispensable condition of success is to know the sinner's mind, 
—to know as well as he does the reasons and apologies with 
which he would fain justify his refusal to repent and believe 
the Gospel, and the mental resistance that he will make to the 
exposure of his fallacies. 



ARGUMENT-POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 175 

Let us, then, bear in mind that, while reasoning is solitary, 
argument, oratorical reasoning, is a dialogue. Hence, before 
a silent audience it cannot be carried on without the aid of the 
imagination. The preacher must know the common mind, — 
how it feels, what it thinks, what it can understand, and what 
it will not take the pains to understand. He must know some- 
thing of the hearer's doubts and difficulties, his beliefs, unbe- 
liefs, and disbeliefs, and must address his argument to them. 
In a word, he must know how his proofs are likely to be 
received and make his rejoinders to unspoken replies. This 
indeed is simply one instance of speaking to the point. 

4. It is select and brief. Only the best of the proofs at com- 
mand are to be chosen. Have we time for more? Even 
though we have, a long array of them will be as likely to weaken 
our cause as to give it strength. " Were it true, there would 
be no need of saying so much in its behalf ; it ought to have 
more light of its own to shine in," — will probably be the 
unspoken criticism of many minds. If we have arguments — 
or even a single one — that are really strong and convincing, 
why weary our hearers and produce a reaction of feeling by 
presenting more than enough? Recently I heard a ser- 
mon in which the proposition, that the sinner's hope that the 
Bible may turn out to be untrue will be disappointed, was 
proved by two considerations : ( 1 ) this hope is without any 
foundation ; (2) many of the greatest and noblest minds have 
been believers in the Bible. Here the first proof, if well estab- 
lished, was certainly strong enough to stand alone. Or suppose 
it be the object of the sermon, e.g., to demonstrate the value 
of the Scriptures. We might show the unique interest attach- 
ing to them as historic records, as literary productions, as a 
legislative guide, as an intellectual stimulus, and so on. But on 
any ordinary occasion such considerations had better be noticed 
very briefly, if at all. The supreme consideration, the spiritual 
value of the Scriptures, so far outweighs all others that they 
are as nothing in comparison. This will plainly appear if the 



176 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

supreme consideration be presented first and the others added : 
" The holy Scriptures make known to us the way of salvation 
through Jesus Christ ; besides, they are valuable as historic 
records, they contain much beautiful poetry," etc. Said the 
Mayor of Beaune — so the story runs — to the Prince of Conde : 
" To display our joy, we wished to receive you with the report 
of numerous artillery, but we have not been able for eighteen 
reasons. In the first place, we have none ; secondly — " " My 
good friend," interrupted the prince, "the first reason is so 
good, I will excuse the other seventeen." 

I do not mean, of course, that we should decline the aid of 
presumptions and analogies. These are as genuine and useful 
as any other class of arguments, in their place. They prepare 
the way for direct and positive proof. E.g., in preaching on 
the efficacy of intercessory prayer, it might be expedient, before 
setting forth the proof of this doctrine from the Christian 
consciousness, or experience, and from the Scriptures, to point 
out the presumption that the God of love would permit us to 
come to Him not only in our own interest, but also in the 
interest of our fellow-men, and to show the analogy between 
such intercession and the intercessory requests which human 
beings are constantly making of one another. But it will seldom 
be necessary to elaborate such preliminary arguments. To 
mention them distinctly will sometimes suffice. 

5. It is truthful. Now it is hard to be truthful in argument. 
Note the ready and often skilful sophistries with which the 
sinner, even from early childhood, will defend or extenuate his 
wrong actions. " Wherein shall we return? " said the apostate 
Jews to God's prophet (Mai. iii. 7, 8, 13, 14), as if they were 
unaware of being astray. Many a criminal has convinced his 
sympathetic listeners, and half convinced himself, that he is 
innocent of the crime for which he has been adjudged to pun- 
ishment. I once visited a man condemned to death for a 
deliberately planned, cold-blooded murder. But to the last he 



ARGUMENT— POSITIVE PRINCIPLES Ull 

seemed to soothe his conscience, and attempted to save his 
reputation, with the plea that the act was done in self-defense : 
" I know it was wrong ; I oughtn't to have done it ; but I knew 
that man would kill me if I did not kill him. I am not a mur- 
derer." Sin is the supreme sophist. 

But is there any danger peculiar to the pulpit at this point? 
Let Dr. R. W. Dale, in his " Nine Lectures on Preaching," 
answer the question : " Of all public speakers, the preacher is 
most in danger of using arguments that prove nothing. He 
does not speak under the salutary restraints that compel other 
men to consider whether there is any relation between their 
premises and their conclusion. There is no one to reply to 
him at the time, and the fear of the newspaper belonging to 
the other party is not before his eyes. This immunity from 
hostile criticism ought to lead us to be more careful and con- 
scientious in making sure of the soundness of our reasoning ; 
and since we are deprived of the logical discipline which comes 
from fair and open debate with equal opponents, we should 
subject ourselves to discipline of another kind." 

Of what kind? We are told of an eminent New York 
preacher who, when asked how he kept up the uniform exact- 
ness of argument for which his preaching was noted, replied 
that he was " accustomed to imagine some legal mind, like 
that of Daniel Webster, among his hearers, and aimed never 
to present a train of reasoning to which the great jurist could 
object." Something of this sort might serve as an expedient, 
but the real self-discipline is deeper and more searching. 

We must submit, as Christian disciples, to the law of Christ. 
This will forbid commending to others any proof— no matter 
how weighty it might seem to them— that is destitute of valid- 
ity and force to our own minds. The preacher may prove no 
doctrine, e.g., by what he has good reason to believe are inter- 
polated or mistranslated passages of Scripture, nor by the 
apparent meaning of passages when he is fairly convinced that 



178 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

this is not their real meaning, even though, as would often be 
the case, a legal mind, like that of Webster, might not know 
the difference. 

To take a single instance : it would be untruthful, in advo- 
cating the duty of temperance, to quote the prohibition, " Drink 
no wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee," and 
keep silent about the limitation of the command, which imme- 
diately follows, — " when ye go into the tent of meeting " (Lev. 
x. 9). Draw out of the passage any principle which you be- 
lieve it to contain, but let the real passage, and not a misleading 
fragment, be employed. 

A make-believe proof is a falsehood ; and the argumentative 
part of the sermon, like every other part, should bear the 
tokens of moral honesty in the use of the intellect. 

6. It isjust. It not only claims for its proofs their proper 
force and no more, but accords the same to any objection that 
may be urged against them. I might undertake to give an 
estimate of the strength of individual arguments in exemplify- 
ing this principle ; but let us rather consider the three classes 
in which all arguments, with respect to their form, may be in- 
cluded, and see what degree of force may be claimed for each 
class in its relation to the others. 

(1) Analogy. Two things, or two classes of things, are 
known to resemble each other in one or more attributes ; one 
of the two is known to possess a certain additional attribute, 
or more less closely connected with these ; we conclude, 
therefore, that the other will be found to possess this additional 
attribute also. This is the argument from analogy. 

Shall I give you a formula for it?— 

x is known to possess qualities a, b, c, and d; 
y is known to possess qualities a, b, and c; 
Therefore y may be supposed to possess quality d. 

Now if attributes a, b, and c are so related as to necessitate 
the existence of the additional quality d, the argument is con- 
clusive ; but not otherwise. Usually they are not so related ; 



ARGUMENT-POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 179 

hence usually the reasoning is of uncertain value. For example : 
Andrew was like Simon Peter (a) in having the same parentage, 
(p) in being taught and trained three years by our Lord, (c) in 
being sent out as an apostle ; Simon Peter was also (d) largely 
successful in his preaching ; we may conclude, therefore, that 
Andrew was also (d) thus successful. The uncertainty of the 
conclusion, and the reason therefor, will be readily seen. 

What measure of truth do you find in the following argument? 
" The subject of style in connection with the delivery of God's 
message is one which it were better to pass over entirely. If 
we should send a man through the town to announce that a 
house was on fire, should we lecture him on the style in which 
he should make the announcement? If we should despatch 
a life-boat to the rescue of a shipwrecked crew, should we 
instruct the captain how to throw a figure of speech or two into 
his invitation? Only let preachers be in earnest, and they will 
have no difficulty in finding appropriate words." 

Another source of uncertainty and error in this class of argu- 
ments is that the resemblance or resemblances on which the 
argument rests may themselves be unreal. For if two things 
be only apparently alike, evidently there can be no ground of 
inference from one to the other. A writer on the subject of 
taxation, e.g., has said that it is a matter of small importance 
what particular branches of revenue are taxed, " because every 
tax in the end affects every class of revenue proportionally, as 
bleeding reduces the circulating blood in every portion of the 
human frame." But an opponent has replied that there is no 
analogy between the two things : " The wealth of society is 
not a fluid, tending continually to a level. It is rather an organ- 
ism, like a tree or a man, no part of which can be lopped off 
without permanently disfiguring the whole." Without under- 
taking to decide upon the relative merits of these two argu- 
mentative illustrations, it is unquestionable that one or the other 
is dependent on a resemblance that does not exist. 

The most forceful kind of analogical argument is that which 



180 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

is known as a fortiori. Here the two cases compared are not 
only alike, but the case to which we reason is stronger than the 
case from which we reason, with respect to some point vitally 
connected with the force of the argument. A familiar example 
is that beautiful interrogative statement of our Lord, " But if 
God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to- 
morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe 
you, O ye of little faith? " The grass is God's creature, depen- 
dent on Him, intended to subserve a useful purpose in the 
world, and God cares for it. I also am His creature, dependent 
on Him and intended to subserve a useful purpose in the world ; 
therefore I may expect God to care for me. But, moreover, 
I am a creature of a higher order than the grass ; I am even 
a child of God ; He is the Creator of the grass, but my heavenly 
Father ; therefore vmch more may / expect to be an object of 
the divine care. 

The a fortiori mode of reasoning is often employed in the 
pulpit, and indeed in all oratory. It occurs a number of times 
in the Bible (Job iv. 17-19 ; Jer. xii. 5 ; Matt. vii. 11 ; x. 25 ; 
xii. 41, 42 ; John x. 34-36 ; Rom. v. 7-10 ; 1 Cor. ix. 24, 25 ; 
Heb. ii. 2, 3 ; xii. 9 ; xii. 25 ; 1 Pet. iv. 17, 18). 

The argument from analogy is often employed with excellent 
effect in answer to objections. An interesting example is 
Whately's little volume entitled " Historic Doubts concerning 
Napoleon Bonaparte," in reply to a certain class of biblical 
critics. Or, to take a more famous example, if a man who 
believes in a personal Creator and Ruler of the world, but not 
in the Bible as an authoritative revelation of His mind and will, 
should produce certain objections to the Bible considered as 
such a revelation, and you are able to show that objections 
similar and equally strong may be alleged against the constitu- 
tion and government of the world, you will not indeed have 
proved that the Bible is a divine revelation, but you will have 
proved that those particular objections to it cannot be consis- 
tently maintained by a believer in the Creator and Ruler of the 



ARGUMENT-POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 181 

world. And this is the purpose of the Second Part of the most 
elaborate and profound analogical argument that has ever been 
written, — Bishop Butler's "Analogy of Religion, Natural and 
Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature." It is 
evident, however, that as against an atheist or an agnostic this 
masterful argument would have no force. Rather he would 
turn it to his own advantage. 

Our Lord refuted the accusations of His opponents, that He 
had violated a sacred ordinance in healing diseases, and His 
disciples in plucking ears of grain on the Sabbath day, by the 
analogy of their own customary conduct (Luke xiii. 11-16; 
xiv. 1-6), and of David and the priests in the temple (Matt, 
xii. 1-7). "And they could not answer Him again to these 
things." 

(2) Induction is reasoning to a general truth, or law, from 
particular instances. 

It is clear that the more numerous the instances the nearer 
the approach to absolute certainty in our conclusion. A com- 
mon fault is to infer from too few instances. Dr. Norman 
Macleod may serve as a genial example, in the Journal of his 
visit to America. Riding on the box of a stage-coach in New 
England, he observed that the driver sat on his left. Forth- 
with he jotted down this observation in his note-book, mixing 
inference and fact in a way not unusual with tourists: "All 
drivers in America sit on the left side of the box." A little 
afterward, however, it appeared that this particular driver was 
left-handed. " I learned a lesson from this,— to beware how I 
generalize." Of every-day occurrence is this top-heavy 
reasoning. 

Especially when the conclusion is one which we wish to find 
true are we satisfied with such proof as a very small number of 
cases can furnish. We try to jump instead of patiently walk- 
ing to our conclusion, with the result frequently of sprawling 
in the dust. 

But the character of the instances has more to do with the 



182 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

certainty of the conclusion than has their number. If an in- 
stance not only suggests or is consistent with a certain con- 
clusion, but contains in itself some evident reason why the 
conclusion should follow, manifestly its argumentative force is 
thereby greatly enhanced. If you should ask a hundred per- 
sons for a contribution to the missionary cause, and meet with 
nothing but refusal, it would be a rash conclusion that all men 
refuse to contribute to Christian missions. Men are so differ- 
ent in character and abilities that the fact of a hundred men's 
acting in a particular way in such a matter would furnish an 
exceedingly slight presumption that all men do so. On the 
other hand, were you to find that in one case pouring water 
on quicklime was followed by the evolution of heat, — having 
previously known nothing of the behavior of these two sub- 
stances when brought together, — you would feel pretty sure 
that the same thing would occur in every similar case; you 
would say at once that it is a law of nature. Because material 
substances, being destitute of will-power (which means destitute 
of freedom), are uniform in their actions : as one does all do in 
the same circumstances. 

If I know a few instances, or even one, in which a revival 
meeting has been conducted on what may without presumption 
be called New Testament methods, — scriptural instruction, 
scriptural motives, no encouragement of hysterical emotions, no 
undue emphasis upon non-essential acts, but a proper guarding 
against and discouragement of such errors, — if I know one in- 
stance in which this kind of revival meeting has resulted more 
favorably, as to the fidelity of its converts and its general effect 
upon the church and the community, than a revival meeting in 
which the number of converts rather than the genuineness of 
their conversion seemed to be the controlling motive, — this 
single instance will go far toward establishing the conclusion 
that it will always be so. Because there are evident reasons, 
apart from the multiplication of instances, why it should be so. 

(3) Deduction, the opposite process to induction, is reason- 



ARGUMENT— POSITIVE PRINCIPLES 183 

ing from a general truth to a particular instance. And, unlike 
analogy and induction, if its premises be true and the reasoning 
valid, deduction yields an absolutely certain conclusion. E.g., 
if it is true, first, that all sin is followed by punishment, and, 
secondly, that using an argument known by us to be fallacious 
as if we believed it to be sound and good is a sin, then, thirdly, 
the conclusion that such use of argument is followed by punish- 
ment is as true and indisputable as the three fundamental laws 
of thought. 

Deduction is of two kinds, demonstrative and moral, or prob- 
able. In demonstrative reasoning (which is confined almost 
exclusively to mathematics) the premises are necessary truths ; 
in probable reasoning they are not. How, then, do we get 
these premises? If they are not necessary truths, principles 
intuitively known to be true and impossible to be denied, by 
what mental process do we find them? The answer is, by 
observation and by induction,— chiefly the latter. Now the 
deductive process is usually simple and easy enough, and, as 
we have just seen, if it be correctly performed and the premises 
be true the conclusion is true of necessity. Hence appears the 
primary importance, in probable deductive reasoning, of in- 
duction ; we must depend upon this for our premises. Here 
is the unguarded postern through which fallacy most often slips 
into our deductive arguments, — not in the deduction, but in 
the preliminary induction. Given the premises of the Roman 
Catholic, the English Ritualist, or the high-church Baptist, to 
draw his conclusion concerning the church and its ordinances 
is an easy matter. The difficult part of the work is to prove 
the premises. 

So we see how a man maybe a good logician and an extremely 
poor reasoner. For logic, strictly speaking, is conversant about 
deductive reasoning only. Hence when formal logic takes up 
the work the greater part of it has already been done. Obser- 
vation, generalization, definition, induction, — these are the 
processes necessary to prove the premises of deduction ; and 



184 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the premises being given, any child in reasoning may usually 
be trusted to draw the conclusion. 

One word more. If honesty and truthfulness should en- 
feeble the intellect and thus hinder the intellectual influence 
Aid success of our lives, we should still be under obligation to 
be honest, just, truthful. But there is no such fundamental 
discord in our nature. The relation of truthfulness to intellec- 
tual power is that of constitutional harmony and helpfulness. 
The man who will not deceive others is clearing his own in- 
tellectual eyesight. He saves himself from many a delusion. 
His habit of honest and accurate speech not only directly 
deepens his moral insight, but indirectly strengthens atten- 
tion, memory, and reasoning power. The liar damages 
his intellect as well as corrupts his heart ; the truth-teller be- 
comes more and more the truth-seer, — a disciple and witness 
of the Lord of truth. " The Word [/<?§w] was made flesh." 
" Pilate therefore said unto Him, Art thou a king then? Jesus 
answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I 
been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I 
should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the 
truth heareth My voice." 



LECTURE VII 

ARGUMENT— CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY 

HERE is a species of argument of such significance in the 
pulpit as to deserve a separate and special treatment. 
Accordingly I will devote the present lecture to Christian 
Testimony. 

I. Its Nature and Claim. 

We have learned that the Bible is a testimony ; that it is a 
long line of testimonies to an outward divine history and an 
inner spiritual life ; that it culminates in the words of Him 
who is the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, and of those 
whom He sent forth in the power of the Spirit as His witnesses 
to the world. Its design is to bring us all into the possession 
of that same spiritual life, and in this way to furnish us with a 
testimony which we in our turn may deliver to others. Thus 
the word of truth is to be transmitted from generation to 
generation, — by this succession of prophetic and apostolic wit- 
nesses. 

And wherever is found a congregation of such witnesses, 
there is the church of God. " We are the circumcision, who 
worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and 
have no confidence in the flesh " (Phil. iii. 3). These, wherever 
they appear, are the true Israel, the covenant people, the 
Christian congregation, the church; and from them is given 
forth continually the testimony of Jesus. 

From them all : every disciple of Christ is a witness. So 
185 



186 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the meeting for prayer and testimony declares. So the re- 
hearsal of a creed by an assembled congregation implies ; for 
its language, though of the intellect rather than of the heart, 
is entirely personal—" / believe." So the hymns of the church 
testify. Many are the hymnists, — ministers, laymen, women ; 
and it is out of their own experience that they have told the 
things of God in Christian song. So the New Testament 
teaches. Not upon the Apostles only, but upon the assembled 
church, men and women, awaiting in Jerusalem the fulfilment 
of their Lord's command, descended the tongues of fire. 

And now, when God lays His hand upon one of these 
Christian witnesses and ordains him to preach the Gospel as 
the work of his life, are we to expect that henceforth his per- 
sonal testimony will be hushed? Shall his word hereafter be 
restricted to what he has heard with the ear or what his books 
have told him? On the contrary, we may expect him to say 
from the pulpit what he has already said elsewhere, and more 
abundantly. A vitally important part of the substance of 
preaching is testimony. Well might George Herbert, under 
the title of " The Parson's Library," have not a word to say 
concerning books, but insist only upon a holy life. The book 
of personal experience in Christian truth and conduct should 
enter into " the parson's " sermons more than the works of any 
theologian. This undoubtedly is apostolic doctrine. " The 
mystery which hath been hid from all ages and generations : 
. . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we pro- 
claim' 1 ' 1 (Col. i. 26-28). "When it was the good pleasure of 
God ... to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him 
among the Gentiles" (Gal. i. 15, 16). More than any other 
of the Apostles, Paul was an argumentative preacher, elabo- 
rating and proving the doctrines of the Gospel ; but greater is 
the revelation of saving truth in his direct testimony and show- 
ing forth of the indwelling Christ than in his arguments. Poor 
and feeble must any word of preaching be that is not a proc- 
lamation of the Christ within. 



ARGUMENT-CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY 187 

Hence among the strong motives that influence men to take 
part in the ministry of the Gospel as the business of their lives, 
we are not surprised to find the two following : 

i. A desire to teach the Word of God; to tell the story of 
Jesus as it is written in the New Testament ; to preach Christ 
as there revealed. The intending preacher's mind dwells much 
on texts and their treatment ; he has the instincts of a teacher, 
perhaps of an orator, and his supreme purpose is to unfold the 
Scriptures and preach the Saviour to whom they bear witness. 

2. The impulse and desire to offer personal testimony for 
Christ. Dr. Archibald Alexander, in his early ministry in 
southern Virginia, met with a Baptist preacher who was also 
a millwright, "in coarse garb, with leathern apron, and laden 
with tools," earning a living at his trade. The clever young 
Presbyterian minister, supposing him to be very ignorant and 
utterly out of place in the pulpit, took occasion to ask his 
views concerning a call to the ministry. So he of the leathern 
apron told his story. James Shelburne was his name. He 
had received little religious instruction ; had been deeply con- 
vinced of sin ; had spent months in darkness and distress ; and 
when at last the light of forgiveness dawned upon him, he 
could not refrain from praising God and telling his neighbors 
and friends of his unspeakable blessedness. They would come 
together on Sunday evenings to hear him. Some were awa- 
kened and converted. He read the Bible, and many passages 
became luminous in the light of his own spiritual experience. 
These he would attempt to explain to the people ; and thus, 
without any thought of becoming a preacher, he found himself 
speaking the Word, as he had received it, to whoever would 
hear. " When the old millwright had finished his narrative," 
says Dr. Alexander, " I felt much more inclined to doubt my 
own call to the ministry than that of James Shelburne." 

Such instances were not uncommon in early Methodism. 
The word of the Lord came to an illiterate man not simply in 
the form of Scripture passages, but in the consciousness of the 



18S 7 BE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Divine Presence in his heart, in conviction and happy conver- 
sion, in the witness of the Spirit and the love of Jesus. There- 
fore, while fully aware that there were many things he could 
not teach, he knew that he had one thing to tell, — something 
that most men, learned or unschooled, did not know, and yet 
the one thing needful to be known by all. He had come into 
possession of the secret of the Lord : that God is the living 
God, dwelling with men, bringing them to judgment for their 
sins, and establishing the kingdom of heaven in believing hearts 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder such men spoke 
with assurance, though destitute of all scholarly attainments. 
It was off their own hearts that they read the law of the Lord 
to men. "And so there rose up," says Dr. R. W. Dale, "a 
great army of preachers, — many of them rough and unlearned 
men, — men who knew very little else, but who knew enough to 
be witnesses— they knew their facts; and they were hot and 
eager to bear testimony to the power and grace of the living 
Christ. And it was not the preachers only that bore testimony. 
... It was an age in which the fortunes of the Christian 
faith seemed desperate. Cool, speculative, learned men be- 
lieved that they had wholly discredited the testimony of the 
four evangelists to the power and glory of Christ ; but instead 
of the four, here were hundreds of fresh witnesses to deal with, 
— original witnesses ; and the hundreds grew to thousands, and 
the thousands to tens of thousands ; and Faith, which seemed 
beaten to the ground, rose exulting and won most splendid 
victories." 

But neither of these two motives is sufficient for the preacher's 
whole ministry. 

The man in whom the first motive is dominant will find that, 
with the exposition of Scripture and the proclamation of Chris- 
tian doctrine must be interblended the expression of his own 
spiritual experience. There must be the personal element, — 
" I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from 
all my fears " ; " Whom, not having seen, we love " ; " And 



ARGUMENT—CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY 189 

He hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee." His 
own testimony must reproduce and confirm that of prophet 
and apostle. Otherwise an indispensable means of conviction 
will be lacking. Besides, the continuous and progressive ex- 
perience in the spiritual life which only renders such testimony 
possible will prevent the preacher's defection from the sim- 
plicity that is in Christ. It will fortify his spirit against the 
allurements of ritualism, unbelief, and formalism. 

But the man whose call to preach comes to him mainly as 
a call to tell of God's gracious dealings with him personally 
will soon find, likewise, that in order to make full proof of his 
ministry he must do much more than was first bidden him. 
He will have to be a student of the Scriptures. He will have 
to study them for his own religious instruction. Without this 
instruction his growth in grace will be arrested or distorted ; 
he will not reach a full and symmetrical development of Chris- 
tian character. But he needs also to know the Scriptures that 
he may minister them to others. The Christian scribe must 
not only teach, but prophesy ; and the Christian prophet must 
be also a teacher, a scribe. 

These two things, then, go together in the ministry of the 
Gospel,— exposition and testimony : exposition the most imper- 
sonal, and testimony the most personal of all one's utterances. 
Accord to both their rightful claim, and they will sustain and 
serve each other, the doctrine shedding light on the experience, 
and the experience interpreting the doctrine. From the days 
of the Apostles until now, the substance of all truly great 
preaching has been the same-^Zf truth in Christian experi- 
ence. 

True, the Christian's testimony, whether delivered in or out 
of the pulpit, is chiefly unconscious and involuntary. It is 
heard in the whole tone and tenor of his life. Let him, then, 
stand before a congregation ; and though the sermon be purely 
expository or argumentative, certain indefinable and inimitable 
signs will show that he is not speaking theoretically, but is 



190 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

endeavoring to explain or prove that Word of God by which, 
and not by bread alone, he himself is living. Of Phillips 
Brooks it has been said, in an able and appreciative estimate 
of his preaching power : " In society he was commonly the 
most reticent of men. But when once he rose before the sea 
of upturned faces that looked to him for counsel and help, or 
even in his study when he was anticipating their demand upon 
him, the seal broke, the barrier burst, and the man laid himself 
bare to the inmost core. . . . Uneventful as his own life was 
in its outer circumstances, the suffering and the perplexed felt 
in his presence that he also had endured, and that he had 
found for himself the comfort and the guidance he brought 
them. It is true there was no intrusion of his personality, little 
or no reference to personal experience, no wearing his heart 
upon his sleeve. . . . He knew and respected the limits of 
personal reserve, both for himself and for others." 

Still, to hold that this unconscious testimony is all would be 
to impose an undue restriction upon " the liberty of prophesy- 
ing." We may bear direct testimony in demonstration of the 
truth, and it may be done without one touch of morbid intro- 
spection, egotism, or cant. If, indeed, we sometimes prefer to 
speak of ourselves in the third person, that, too, may be well. 
Paul did it with reference to one at least of his experiences 
— "I knew a man in Christ, fourteen years ago." Why 
need we depart, in this matter, from the example of the first 
witnesses of Jesus? 

Now is this an exceptional use of testimony? Is it only in 
personal religion that truth is communicated by telling one's 
own experience? On the contrary, the same thing is done in 
connection with almost every subject of instruction. Read 
the agricultural papers. There is some science in them, and 
a good deal of theory and conjecture, but certainly no lack of 
personal testimony as to the cultivation of the soil. What is 
expected of the preachers who from year to year are asked to 
fill the Lyman Beecher lectureship on preaching? " It is each 



ARGUMENT— CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY 191 

man's own life in the ministry of which he is to tell." Why 
would you rather have a foreign land and its inhabitants de- 
scribed to you by a traveler than by a scholar? What should 
you think of a parent who was strictly impersonal in his coun- 
sels to his children? How about our men of science ? Would 
it be possible to exalt experience to a higher place than they 
assign it, both in learning and in teaching the order of nature? 
A pulpit without personal testimony, so far from being reason- 
able and regular, is an anomaly in the teaching world. 

Nor need there be any lack of variety in this material of 
preaching. As in exposition, so here, the same few essential 
truths will reappear continually, but in forms and aspects in- 
numerable. Prayer is not to you precisely what it is to your 
brother; be content to tell what it is to you. So with trust in 
Providence, the beginnings of the new life in the soul, the 
witness of the Spirit, the love of the Saviour, the will of God. 
Think how differently Frederick Robertson and Peter Cart- 
wright would have spoken in a meeting for religious testimony ; 
and yet the same Christ dwelt in the hearts of them both. 

Besides, your own inner life cannot abide in any fixed 
quantity or form. Like all other life, it is affected by its sur- 
roundings and is realized in activity and progress. Accordingly 
the expression of it, direct or indirect, will not be a wearisome 
monotony. There will be " a new song unto the Lord," and 
there will be a new word of testimony before the congregation. 
Says Dr. William M. Taylor, in his sermon on Jeremiah xlviii. 
n: " Twenty years ago I should never have been drawn to this 
text, and could have given no very appreciative explanation of 
its meaning ; but the providence of God, in the interval, has 
written many times over a commentary on it over my own heart, 
and if to-day I have been enabled to read that off correctly 
for your comfort and edification, to Him be all the praise." 

II. Its Validity. 

Nothing is so real to us as our present state of consciousness 
— not even the existence of material objects. That we do at 



192 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

this moment have such and such experiences is simply and 
absolutely true. To doubt it is impossible. If I remember 
having once lived in the country, or positively dislike a certain 
occupation, or enjoy the society of a friend, or do an act for 
my own benefit and satisfaction, — if I am distinctly conscious 
of such experiences of the natural life,— nothing can convince 
me of the contrary. Again, if I feel a sense of duty, the moral 
imperative, not enticing or convincing or persuading, but com- 
manding me, and I distinctly recognize this source of action 
as different in its nature from all others, — I know that this is 
so. Whether I honor this sense of duty by obedience, or turn 
away and refuse to comply with its demand, I know that it 
makes the demand, — that it requests nothing, but, in the face 
of all the clamorous pleas of the appetites and desires, claims 
the right to rule my actions. Nor do I hesitate to say so, and 
thus to testify to the reality of the moral life. When Immanuel 
Kant, in a classic passage, says that he contemplates "the 
moral law within" with "an ever-rising admiration and rever- 
ence," that he " connects it with his consciousness of existence," 
that he "recognizes it as universal and necessary," that it 
"proposes his moral worth for the absolute end of his activity, 
conceding no compromising of its imperative to a necessitation 
of nature, and spurning in its infinity the conditions and 
boundaries of this present transitory life," the profound philos- 
opher is simply witnessing in his own way, as any humbler 
man may do in his, to this sublime moral reality. And now, 
if I am conscious of needs which the world about me does not 
satisfy ; if I suffer pain of conscience for having neglected duties 
and broken the moral law ; if I yield to the impulse of prayer ; 
if, under the preaching of the Gospel, I experience a keener 
and deeper sense of sin, and at the same time the hope of 
salvation ; if I give up myself wholly to God in Christ and 
find peace through the blood of the Cross; if I feel con- 
fidence toward God, a sense of nearness to Him and of filial 
love and fear, — I know that such has been my conscious 



ARGUMENT-CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY 193 

experience ; and this is my testimony to the reality of the 
spiritual life. 

Do I stand alone in this experience? Is it, unlike the sense 
of the natural world and of the moral law, exceptional? Strange 
if it were so. If God is Spirit, if He is light and love, strange 
if He should almost never speak a recognizable word to beings 
made in His image. He does speak to them. The experience 
is not peculiar, but common. " Against Thee, Thee only, have 
I sinned, and done that which is evil in Thy sight " : so said a 
psalmist concerning himself. " Because ye are sons, God sent 
forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, 
Father " : so said an apostle to the church. Even those to 
whom the Gospel has never been preached are not without 
some consciousness of their spiritual birthright, which they 
either dishonor by unfaithfulness or strive to realize by feeling 
after God, in whom we have our being. 

Not merely was it so once. Sometimes we hear these things 
spoken of in the pulpit as if they were simply biblical and his- 
toric. But such preaching has not the ring of reality ; the 
preacher's voice is but a thin, uncertain reverberation from the 
sacred ages of the past. And very imperfectly does it repre- 
sent them. What qualifications have we for interpreting the 
life of God in the men of the Bible, when we have no con- 
sciousness of it in ourselves? Where is our key of knowledge? 
Have we not already learned as expositors that the Bible is in 
a dead language, spiritually as well as linguistically, till the di- 
vine speech has been heard in our own souls? It was said of 
Patrick, the half-mythical evangelist of Ireland, that he heard 
a voice speaking within and saying, " He who gave His life 
for thee, He speaks in thee." That is merely a legend ; but it is 
true that only through the Spirit speaking within can the voice 
of Jesus in the Scriptures be truly known. 

But may we not mistake the testimony of experience? 
Undoubtedly: mistakes are made in relation to every other 
subject ; why should this subject prove an exception? We may 



194 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

misinterpret consciousness ; we may draw unjustifiable infer- 
ences, and may confound inference and fact. One might say, 
for example, " I am conscious that my friend is the most lovable 
person in the world," when he was conscious only that his friend 
was thus attractive to him; or, " My conscience forbids me to 
give money to this tramp," whereas what his conscience really 
forbade was to do wrong, and that such almsgiving would be 
wrong was a conclusion of his judgment ; or a person may not 
be conscious, at some given time, of anything contrary to 
Christian love in his heart, but if thereupon he should say, " I 
am conscious that there is nothing contrary to Christian love 
in my heart," he would be putting an unjustifiable inference in 
the place of an experience, — as if a soldier who simply saw no 
enemy in the camp should declare that there was none. " For 
I know nothing against myself ; yet am I not hereby justified : 
but He that judgeth me is the Lord " (i Cor. iv. 4). 

Similarly, if a man should claim the testimony of conscious- 
ness for his theology, he would be confounding two perfectly 
distinct though closely related things, — his religion, which is 
an experience, a life, and his theology, which is an elaborated 
system of thought, a body of inferences. For example, one 
cannot plead the testimony of consciousness for the possibility 
of a Christian's finally falling away from Christ ; he can be 
conscious only of the present possibility of sin. In like man- 
ner, when Whitefield professed to have "the witness of the 
Spirit " to the truth of the Calvinistic doctrine of election, he 
showed himself to be an incompetent theologian,— failing to 
discriminate between the reality of the sense of sonship to God 
which he experienced in connection with his belief in the Gos- 
pel as interpreted by Calvin, and the soundness of the whole 
Calvinistic interpretation of the Gospel. Or, again, if a person 
who was converted under great emotional excitement — intol- 
erable distress followed suddenly by joyful assurance — offers 
his experience as a model to which all others, if genuine, will 
conform, he is not in error as to any matter of fact, but he has 



ARGUMENT-CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY 195 

failed to discriminate between the essential and the non-essen- 
tial, and accordingly has drawn an erroneous conclusion. 

But the validity of personal experience as a part of the argu- 
mentative substance of preaching is entirely unaffected by any 
unwarranted theological conclusions that may be drawn from 
it. All through the Christian ages stands the multitudinous 
line of Christ's witnesses. Make every possible deduction on 
the account of infirmities, hypocrisies, unregulated enthusiasm, 
intellectual errors and vagaries, and there still remains the un- 
impeachable testimony of this great cloud of witnesses to the 
reality of sin and fear, of irrepressible longing for a better life, 
of joy and peace in believing in Jesus, of a sense of sonship, 
the trustful cry of " Father " to Him in whose hand our life is. 
The more fully the Gospel is known, believed, and practised, 
the more powerful and controlling are these experiences. And 
when made known to others they waken a responsive experi- 
ence : they stir the dormant religious consciousness of the un- 
godly, and gladden the Christian with a fresh interpretation 
not only of the written Word, but also of the divine life in his 
own heart. 

III. Its Authority. 

Now the preacher should speak, not hesitatingly, not depre- 
catively, not as the scribes repeating an immemorial tradition 
(" An aged man with white flowing beard and tremulous voice 
would say, 'When I was a boy my grandfather, who was a 
rabbi, often told me how R. Nathan Tolmai used to say,' " 
and so on). Not thus, and surely not with arrogance and self- 
conceit ; but authoritatively. He must show the unaffected 
simplicity and confidence, the eloquent (e-loquens, outspoken) 
manner of assured knowledge. 

There is, indeed, notwithstanding the universal recognition 
of human fallibility, a certain authority that belongs to every 
office and calling. We take the word of a physician in matters 
pertaining to his profession, and obey his commands blindly, 
putting life itself in his hands. After the same manner is the 



196 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

farmer an authority, and the shopkeeper and the shoemaker 
— every man in his own little professional sphere. So with the 
Christian ministry. People will cheerfully acknowledge your 
authority as a religious teacher, especially when it is not intruded 
upon them. In fact you will sometimes be pained at their 
too easily contenting themselves with an official decision of 
questions instead of thinking more for themselves. But the 
true authority of the minister of Christ is personal, not pro- 
fessional. It rests, not upon what he is presumed to know as 
a member of a particular class or order, but upon his own char- 
acter, ability, and experience. That is a feeble minister the 
weight of whose words is from his office rather than from him- 
self. 

Moreover, his truest and weightiest personal authority is not 
that of a theologian or an exegete. It is that of a Christian ; 
of a man who has been with Jesus, who lives daily in the con- 
scious presence of the heavenly Father and under the teaching 
of the Holy Spirit. It is the authority of the witness before 
the court, rather than of the judge on the bench, learned in 
the law. Well has it been said that the " Confessions " of 
Augustine are more authoritative than his theological treatises, 
and Bunyan's " Grace Abounding " than Calvin's " Insti- 
tutes." 

Very precious to a congregation is "the blood-streak of 
experience " in a sermon. Very persuasive, very commanding, 
is the preaching of the man who, himself penetrated and pos- 
sessed by the Christian evangel, tells out of his own heart 
what he knows of sin, atonement, forgiveness, sonship, eternal 
life. To such truth other hearts will be constrained to give 
their Amen. 

What competency as Christian teachers did those clergymen 
have to whom young George Fox went in sore distress to learn 
what he must do to be saved, and got the advice to take to- 
bacco and sing psalms? On the other hand, an illiterate man 
who " does justly, loves mercy, and walks humbly with his 



ARGUMENT-CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY 197 

God " will speak to an awakened soul with a power which his 
most erudite brother, if not also of a spiritual mind, must fail 
to exert. At the age of sixty-five years William Carvosso was 
barely able to write his name. Yet the letters which he wrote 
during the last twenty years of his life have been read from 
that day to the present by the learned and the unlearned, and 
accepted as the teachings of one who had the highest possible 
right to show the way of life. " Except a man be born anew, 
he cannot see the kingdom of God." 

Read Part I of Dr. Samuel Harris's "The Self-Revelation of God," 
Bishop R. S. Foster's " Philosophy of Christian Experience," " Memoir 
of William Carvosso." 



LECTURE VIII 



DESCRIPTION 



HERE we have a process of the imagination. Its object 
is to realize; not to convince the hearer of the truth, 
but to impress him with a sense of its reality. 

The imagination is often disparaged in common speech, as 
if it were an instrument of delusion. " You only imagine that 
—it is better to follow one's judgment— we can imagine any- 
thing." But the imagination is not to be confounded with a 
freakish and irresponsible fancy. It is not a disturber or mis- 
leader, but one of the mightiest instruments of discovery, one 
of the noblest servants of truth. It images the unseen. It is 
the mind's eye, which sees outward things without the aid of 
the senses, — 

" that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude," — 

before which, indeed, even the spiritual and eternal comes 
forth in some form of embodiment. 

Of constant imaginative activity no mind, sane or insane, 
awake or asleep, is destitute. True, Mr. Ruskin has said that 
" hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but 
thousands can think for one who can see." But he means " for 
one who can see " distinctly, steadily, penetratively. The 
imaginative mind imagines, or "sees," strongly; the prosaic 
mind also imagines, but feebly. So, whether those pictures of 
the unseen which each of us must form for himself are vague 
198 



DESCRIPTION 199 

or clear, meager or complete, depends on the strength, accu- 
racy, and intelligence of the imagination. I speak a word in 
your hearing, — " the prophet Elijah," " Mount Olivet," " John 
the Baptist by the river Jordan." The sound touches your 
imagination, and forthwith you see something. Can you not 
suppose some other man to see more on hearing such a word, 
and to see it with a truer vision ; so that if each of you were to 
draw a perfect picture of the mental image his sketch would 
have greater value than yours? 

Is the imagination a power of the mind that can be instructed 
and cultivated? Perhaps there is none more susceptible of 
improvement. Looking through a microscope strains the eyes 
at first, but afterward strengthens and improves them. Like- 
wise, in the beginner, an intense effort of the imagination may 
only weary and confuse ; but the beginner, if faithful, will soon 
become the expert, able to see distinctly what before was 
blurred or invisible. He will have learned where and how to 
look for things. 

To describe, then, is to show what you see to others. It 
may be some outward scene or object ; it may be something 
spiritual, a state of mind, a character. Picture it to the con- 
gregation with that infinitely expressive material, your mother- 
tongue. Not, indeed, by detailed description. This wearies 
and checks rather than stimulates the hearer's imagination. 
Your picture should be a sketch only; in most cases not so 
much as that, but only a touch of the pencil here and there. 
Often two or three telling features of the object are enough. 
You are addressing minds that are ready themselves to imagine. 
Give them a start— it is better than to do more. 

Your subjects of description will be largely biblical. We 
may take these, then, as representative of all. The persons 
and events of a far-distant past are to be so spoken of as to 
appear vivid and lifelike in your preaching. 

Let me illustrate. Suppose you have selected as a text John 
iii. 30 : " He must increase, but I must decrease." You think 



200 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

it well to have a narrative introduction, and it is given some- 
what as follows: 

" These are the words of John the Baptist. He had been 
preaching to the multitude and baptizing at the river Jordan, 
and had gathered about him a number of disciples. These 
disciples, as we learn from the context, had informed him that 
Jesus, to whom he had borne witness, was baptizing, and that 
all men were coming to Him. 'John answered and said, A 
man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. 
Ye yourselves,' " etc. (verses 27-30). 

Here the bare facts as recorded by the evangelist are nar- 
rated, unillumined by any word of interpretative imagination. 
Now compare with this the introduction of a sermon by 
A. K. H. Boyd (the " Country Parson") on the same text: 

" There are little things which men say and do which give 
us a thorough insight into their character, and which enable us 
to construct a complete theory of what their nature is. . . . 
There is that in this short sentence that shows us how fit he 
was to be our blessed Saviour's forerunner, that shows us what 
a noble-hearted, generous, great man the Baptist was. . . . 
These disciples of John the Baptist did not like that their 
master, after filling the first place, should sink into the second, 
and with some perplexity and grief and disappointment they 
came and made their moan. . . . There are worthy men who 
wish good to be done, souls to be saved, sad hearts comforted, 
Christ's kingdom furthered— but all this done by themselves. 
. . . The very best Christian minister cannot like it when his 
church begins to get empty. . . . But all this, though very 
natural, is somewhat little ; and there is no such littleness in 
the Baptist's noble heart. . . . ' I have had my little day, and 
my light is paling before the rising sun of another,' many a 
man would sadly enough have said, with a mournful resignation 
to what could not be helped. Not so John the Baptist. . . . 
The words are strange. Where many a human being would 
have said, ' My mortification is complete,' he said, ' My joy is 
fulfilled.' " 

There is nothing remarkable in this description, unless it be 
the sweet simplicity of thought and language. But it gives a 



DESCRIPTION 201 

glimpse of the truth behind the facts. It shows us something 
of the mind and feeling of John as he stood among his per- 
turbed disciples and spoke to them of the Lord. It sets before 
us the man, not a mere name. 

In like manner, the significance of the outward scene of a 
saying or an event may be discovered by the imagination. 
Take as an example a few lines from McNeill's sermon entitled 
" What Aileth Thee, Hagar? " : 

" 'What aileth thee, Hagar? ' said the voice out of heaven, 
suggesting to us how near, after all, are heaven and earth — 
holy, happy, helpful heaven, and parched, withered, wilderness 
earth. Notice the scene. A dusky woman, an Egyptian, dark 
of skin, and darker of heart at this moment, sitting in loneli- 
ness and bitterness. A bow-shot off, a young lad. At first 
he was all the hope, but now he is all the trouble. Utterly 
spent with the heaviness of the way, he has been cast under a 
shrub, that his mother may not see him die. Nothing all 
round about but sand, and barren scrub, and baking rocks, 
reflecting and beating down more keenly the fierce heat of the 
sun. A great, overarching, empty heaven ; if anything to be 
seen, away yonder in the distance a black speck or two, which 
by and by will turn out to be the swift wings, gleaming eyes, 
and sharpened beaks of the vultures hastening to their prey. 
Many a time they have got a meal here. From afar they 
scent the feast, and are just beginning to darken the sky. And 
there— oh, wonder of wonders — it is writ, there heaven is 
near, there God is, there salvation is, there the voice of promise 
and hope and revival." 

Sometimes purely imaginary circumstances are freely intro- 
duced among the actual, as in Bishop Simpson's sermon on 
" The Christian Ministry," which I have heard him deliver with 
overwhelming power: 

" I see him yonder. He has been preaching in the city, 
and they carry him out without the walls. The missiles come 
thick and fast upon him ; he falls bruised and wounded, and 
his enemies leave him for dead. I go to his side, I lift him 



202 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

up, I wipe the blood away from his face. I look as he catches 
his breath heavily, and now he opens his eyes. I say to him : 
' Paul, you had better give up preaching. They will kill you. 
Don't go to the next city ; don't take up your next appoint- 
ment ; don't go round your circuit.' Just as soon as he is able 
to recover breath he speaks. I bend my ear to his lips, and 
he whispers out these words : ' None of these things move me.' 
I follow him to another city, and after the sermon they arrest 
him. The robe is taken off his shoulders ; a strong man lays 
on the lash. . . ." 

I have said that in description we are not to present a fin- 
ished picture, but only a few suggestive features ; in other 
words, a charcoal sketch rather than a painting. In the de- 
scriptions just quoted as examples there is elaboration enough 
— in some perhaps too much. " The art of wearying is to tell 
everything." Note also that most frequently description is 
very brief, — a sentence or a phrase, a gleam, a revealing 
hint, here and there. It is the power to express so wonder- 
fully, in a few words, in the course of an exposition or an argu- 
ment, his keen poetic insight into nature and the life of man, 
that has helped to give Frederick Robertson's discourses their 
singular charm. Such examples as the following may be 
found on almost every page : 

" When the white lightning has quivered in the sky, has that 
told us nothing of power, or only something of electricity?" 
"A field of com, in its yellow ripeness." "See two men 
meeting together in the streets — mere acquaintance. They 
will not be five minutes together before a smile will overspread 
their countenances, or a merry laugh ring of, at the lowest, 
amusement." " No man ever went through a night-watch in 
the bivouac, when the distant hum of men and the random 
shot fired told of possible death on the morrow, or watched in 
a sick-room, when time was measured by the sufferer's breath- 
ing or the intolerable ticking of the clock, without a firmer 
grasp on the realities of life and time." " Can you not con- 
ceive the end of one with a mind so torn and distracted? — the 
death in battle, the insane frenzy with which he would rush 



DESCRIPTION 203 

into the field, and, finding all go against him, and that lost for 
which he had bartered heaven, after having died a thousand 
worse than deaths, find death at last upon the spears of the 
Israelites? " 

If you will substitute for such passages the corresponding 
matter-of-fact statements, the contrast will be very striking. 

But there is a greater danger in description than that of 
elaborateness. It is the danger of extravagance. The imagina- 
tion may slip away from nature and wisdom and take up the 
speech of folly. Description makes much use of epithets and 
figures of speech. But if the epithets and figures be vague, or 
glaring, or too high-wrought, or too numerous, the effect is 
displeasing. No distinct image arises in the hearer's mind. 
There is no true word-painting ; only a confusing display of 
paint. 

Sometimes, indeed, the language becomes utterly meaning- 
less. A sermon was handed me for criticism some days ago, 
which contained a description of the temple service in Jeru- 
salem in the time of King Solomon. The author is by no 
means destitute of imagination. But in this case he was not 
content simply to look with his mind's eye, and then to " speak 
as a man may, to tell what he saw." He must indulge the 
ambition to embellish his style. So the observer, whom he 
stations on one of the "surrounding mountains," is made to 
"behold " several impossible things, among them " the incense 
ascending to the salubrious ether." He said, when interro- 
gated, that by ether he meant "something above the air." 
As to whether it was salubrious or not he acknowledged entire 
ignorance, and also admitted that, even if an ether of this sort 
exist, no mortal eye could give assurance that a cloud of 
incense would ever reach it through forty miles of air. The 
pleasant rhythm and scholarly associations of the half-under- 
stood phrase had tempted him into nonsense. 

Some scenes are too painful or too appalling for description. 
No poet would describe a violent death. A pathetic word or 



204 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

two suggesting the tragic event might be very impressive; a 
description would be harrowing. Are there not some scenes 
in the New Testament from which the veil may be drawn, in 
the pulpit, only for a moment? Let not the preacher attempt 
to depict, except very briefly or suggestively and with tenderest 
reverence, the agony in Gethsemane or the Crucifixion. It 
would produce no such impression as he intends. It would 
be more likely to distress sensitive minds, as an unfit handling 
of the most sacred of themes, than to deepen their sense of 
the Saviour's atoning love. 

Now, as to how we shall prepare for this imaginative ex- 
position of Scripture, two suggestions : 

i. Get possession of the facts. The poet and the novelist 
are as close observers, in their way, as the scientific investi- 
gator. The first thing with them is to know men and nature 
as they are, minutely and familiarly. And especially is it 
demanded of the historic imagination that it shall be at home 
among the general facts of the time and place with which it 
is dealing. 

Read Bible histories in connection with the Bible itself. 
Acquaint yourself with biblical geography ; know the appear- 
ance and productions of Palestine and the surrounding coun- 
tries. Become familiar with the manners and customs of the 
people, — how they dressed, what kinds of houses they lived in, 
how their food was prepared and eaten, how they got a liveli- 
hood, their funeral customs, their modes of salutation, of 
hospitality, of worship, and so on. Be interested in that 
mystery of baseness and nobility, of suffering and ecstasy, the 
human heart. Study the characters and dispositions of the 
Bible men and women, so as to form an idea of how they 
would feel and act under given circumstances. Above all, 
familiarize yourselves with the Gospel narratives; learn the 
events of the life of Jesus, and their surroundings, of that life 
which is the Center of the world's history and the Light of 
men. The recent literature on these topics is most excellent 



DESCRIPTION 205 

and abundant. Your opportunities here, as compared with 
those of your predecessors of the last generation, are as ten to 
one. 

Indeed, without a fair knowledge of biblical antiquities we 
must blunder upon every page of the historical parts of the 
Bible. Inevitably we shall Americanize the land of Israel 
and deform the ancient East with modern and Occidental garb. 
A great painter represents Abraham, in his battle with Chedor- 
laomer, as wearing the armor of an Italian soldier. I have 
heard a young preacher speak of the cities of Sodom and 
Gomorrah "with their spires pointing heavenward," and of 
Martha of Bethany as " coming in probably with her sleeves 
rolled up and flour on her apron." And I have heard a 
preacher by no means " young " say, " This parable is supposed 
to have been uttered in the spring, when the sower was going 
forth to sow," and, again, " In the case of the Jewish sacrifices, 
the animal was killed without the camp, and its body brought," 
and so on. Even in a sermon of Bishop Simpson we are told 
that the son of the widow of Nain "had been dead possibly sev- 
eral days." I have read of worse instances. A Sunday-school 
boy asked his teacher how it was that David could walk on 
the top of his house. " Don't grumble at your Bible, boy," 
was the reply ; and a fellow-teacher, overhearing the conver- 
sation, came to his brother's relief with the suggestion, " The 
answer to the difficulty is, ' With men it is impossible, but not 
with God ; for with God all things are possible.' " 

Now if this ignorance or indifference concerning the outward 
situations of the men of the past helped us to fix attention upon 
themselves, and thus to realize that they were men, and not 
mere shadows of humanity, it could lay claim to great utility. 
But it does not ; it introduces confusion and unreality into our 
conceptions. The better our knowledge of the outer life, the 
better our qualification to know the life within. An incorrect 
image, indeed, may convey more truth and power than a mere 
name or vague, unpictured idea. I should rather think of 



206 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Martha as coming into the room " with her sleeves rolled up 
and flour upon her apron " than to think of her as little more 
than the six English letters, M-a-r-t-h-a. It were better to 
represent the men and women of the past in modern dress 
than not to re-present them at all. But surely it would be 
better still as nearly as possible to picture them as they were. 

2. Look upon the scene, the event, the person, till you get 
a clear and self-consistent image. Look intently. It is more 
irksome than to open one's eyes and let them rest idly upon 
the scene before one's door, or even to look critically upon the 
faces and costumes of the passers-by. Nevertheless it can be 
done ; the mind's eye may be trained to greater and greater 
distinctness of vision. 

Learn to put yourself in others' places. Enter even into 
mental conditions and moods as different as possible from your 
own. Think other men's thoughts, feel their hopes and fears, 
live their lives. Make real to yourself the human and natural 
constituents of the sacred story. "Without this the men of the 
Bible will appear in your preaching as rigid and inexpressive 
as the pictures of them in a church window, — "the prophets 
blazoned on the pane." An eloquent Scotch preacher, Robert- 
son of Irvine, of whom it was said that he preached " as one 
to whom the truth was at that moment revealed," divulged the 
secret of this whole art of historic imagination when some one 
asked how he had managed to describe the passage of the Red 
Sea so graphically : " I called up the scene before me, I 
saw the procession of the tribes, and I simply told what I 
saw." 

But in all this — need I pause to say it? — there is no plea for 
the antiquarian spirit which loves the past just because it is the 
past and has "won a glory from its being far." Preachers, 
indeed, are sometimes accused of this spirit, — of walking 
through the tombs instead of the streets. Such complaints 
however are usually due, not to the frequency with which the 
preacher refers to the past, but to the imperfect, unimaginative 



DESCRIPTION 207 

manner in which he describes it. Certainly no one makes 
complaint of Dr. Talmage, for example, that he is oblivious of 
his own times; and yet how few sermons are more largely 
descriptive than his of Bible scenes and events. 

There is a danger, it is true, to be guarded against. It is 
possible to interest one's self more in the circumstances and 
surroundings of the truth than in the truth itself. The geog- 
raphy, the history, the antiquities of the text, or the various 
personal traits of Bible characters, may usurp the preacher's 
chief interest and attention. So the mind of the hearer is 
transported to the far-away scene and left there. No great 
doctrine or duty has been sufficiently expounded and empha- 
sized. The preacher has not interpreted to his congregation, 
by the light of the past, their own day and generation, their 
own little neighborhood, their own lives. The discourse may 
have been entertaining, though probably it was not — for people 
generally are interested in the past only as it mirrors their own 
experience or shows forth the hand of God. It may have 
been instructive and useful, though probably it did little good. 
But supposing it to have been both interesting and instructive, 
was it preaching? Was it manifestly and strongly directed, 
from beginning to end, toward the setting forth of evangelical 
truth? Rather, the right order was reversed; the frame ex- 
changed places with the picture. Remember, the preacher's 
object is not to make Bible scholars, but Bible Christians. 

It is for this reason that, even when the text is a Scripture 
narrative, the proposition and divisions had better consist of 
moral and spiritual than of merely historical ideas. I once 
gave my class the story of Mary's anointing of Christ as the 
subject of a homiletic exercise. The two following plans will 
fairly represent the work that was done : 

i. Proposition. — Mary's Anointing of Christ. 

Divisions. — i. The significance of this act to Judas; 

2. To Mary herself; 

3. To Christ. 



208 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

2. Proposition. — The Service of Love. 

Divisions. — i. It is a service which every disciple of 
Christ may render, according to his ability and oppor- 
tunity ; 

2. It is acceptable to Christ ; 

3. It may possess a significance to Christ which the doer 
of it would never have supposed. 

The latter plan was preferred in the class-room, on the 
ground that it gave greater prominence to the spiritual truth 
and meaning of the incident. It was more interpretative. It 
was more living. It permitted the full use of the facts, but in 
their proper place, — as simply a vivid and impressive illustra- 
tion of the truth to be preached. 

Closely akin to description is Narration, — story-telling. And 
this process also frequently enters into the development of the 
sermon. The introduction may consist of a history of events 
in connection with the text. An incident may be used as an 
illustration. Or the text itself may be a Scripture narrative 
which will need to be retold, either in the introduction or 
during the progress of the discussion. But the homiletic 
principles involved in narration are the same as in description, 
and need not be repeated here. Were I to emphasize one of 
these principles above the others, it would be that of sugges- 
tiveness. Narration is much more apt to err through redundancy 
than through defect. Let the movement be uninterrupted and 
purposeful. Be picturesque. Select the significant points of 
the narrative, touch upon a characteristic circumstance or two, 
and leave the rest unsaid. 

Read Thomson's " The Land and the Book," Stanley's " Sinai and 
Palestine," Bissell's " Biblical Antiquities." 



LECTURE IX 

ILLUSTRATION — CLASSES, DISCOVERY 

HERE again the imagination is active. Here, also, it is 
more conspicuously creative than in description. We 
make illustrations— or ought to. 
I. What are Illustrations ? 

The use of them is not solely to render our meaning clear 
and lustrous ; but also to win attention, to touch the feelings, 
to convince the judgment, to quicken the imagination, to impress 
the memory. I know of no one word that seems to express 
it all as well as that which I have applied to description : we 
illustrate in order to make real. The effect of a good illustra- 
tion is not a single, simple impression. It is familarization 
with the communicated truth, realization. 

Hence we often illustrate a statement which is already plain 
and incontrovertible. Dr. William M. Taylor tells of a preacher 
whom he heard discoursing on the certainty of death in some 
such style as this : " As sure as to-morrow's sun shall rise, as 
sure as the tidal wave keeps its appointed time, as sure as " — 
several other perfectly certain things,— till one of his hearers 
could not repress the impatient exclamation, "What does he 
mean? Do not the very boys on the street seal their bargains 
with ' As sure as death ' ? " And Dr. Taylor gives this as an 
example under the rule that he lays down for young preachers, 
that " you should not attempt to illustrate that which is already 
perfectly plain." Is it out of place, then, we may ask, to speak 
209 



210 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

of the countless generations of men who have lived and died? 
to ask the prophet's question, " Your fathers, where are they "? 
to remind our hearers of those within their own circle of ac- 
quaintance, the young and the old, that have passed into 
eternity? Yet all these are illustrations of the certainty of 
death. In fact, the very thing such a truism requires of the 
preacher is illustration. Not, indeed, for the sake of explana- 
tion or proof, but of impression. It needs no proof ; it cannot 
be described ; but to most men it is strangely unreal, though 
so very familiar ; and great will be the benefit when it is sent 
home to the heart with something of its solemn reality. If the 
preacher referred to by Dr. Taylor is open to criticism, it is 
not for using illustrations on this subject, but for the illustra- 
tions used. 

It may give us a juster idea of the nature and purpose of 
these inevitable products of the imagination, to divide them 
into classes. 

First, there are illustrative figures. These are chiefly the 
metaphor and the simile, which are too familiar to demand 
explanation. In addition to these may be mentioned the 
allegory, the parable, and the fable, as figurative forms of il- 
lustration common in ancient times, though rare with the 
teachers of to-day. An allegory is a story true to nature, 
illustrating a series of events in a higher sphere; a parable is a 
story true to nature, illustrating some spiritual truth; a fable is 
a story not true to nature, illustrating some prudential maxim. 
In the Scriptures the te:m parable is employed with a 
broader meaning than the one here given : it includes what we 
should call allegory,— e.g., the parables of the Sower, the 
Tares, the Wicked Husbandmen ; and sometimes the Scripture 
parables are so condensed that we should call them metaphors 
or similes,— e.g., "Physician, heal thyself" (Luke iv. 23); 
" Can the blind guide the blind? shall they not both fall into 
a pit? " (Luke vi. 39) ; " Now from the fig-tree learn her par- 
able : when her branch is now become tender, and putteth 



ILLUSTRATION-CLASSES, DISCOVERY 211 

forth its leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh ; even so ye 
also, when ye see all these things, know ye that he is nigh, even 
at the doors " (Matt. xxiv. 32, ■$$). 

There are good reasons for the rarity of these three species 
of illustrative figures in the pulpit : most men are not capable 
of inventing them; and besides they are more suitable for 
constituting than merely for illustrating discourse. Why did 
not the Apostles teach in parables? 

We have also a kind of illustrations that may be classed in 
a general way under the head of symbols. These are visible 
objects actually shown to the hearer in illustration of some 
truth. "Through Eye-gate as well as through Ear-gate." 
They include mathematical diagrams, scientific experiments in 
the lecture-room, pictures in "illustrated" books and news- 
papers, the object-lessons of the kindergarten, sacred ritual 
types (e.g., the sacrifices of the ancient dispensation), prophetic 
symbols (e.g., the girdle in Jer. xiii. 1-10), primitive Christian 
symbols (such as the anchor, the lily, the ring, — representing 
hope, purity, eternity), and dramatic action. Of these only 
the last kind is of special homiletic importance. Dramatic 
action is an inseparable accompaniment of expressive speech. 
Every child avails himself of its aid. The vivacious preacher 
can hardly avoid it, and should not try. As to maps and 
blackboards, our pulpits are not yet supplied with them ; and 
their introduction would probably be attended with greater loss 
than advantage. The devotional tone of the sermon would 
be lowered ; and matters of minor importance would become 
relatively too conspicuous. In the religious teaching of chil- 
dren, however, a place has been gained for such helps which 
they are likely to hold and enlarge. 

Again : we use illustrative examples. These are generally 
given in the form of incidents ; and they are either real or 
imaginary. 

Examples may also be divided into direct and analogical. A 
direct example is taken from the class of things concerning 



212 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

which the statement to be illustrated is made. An analogical 
example is not taken from the class of things concerning which 
the statement to be illustrated is made, but from a similar class. 
For instance, the necessity of diligence in the work of Christ 
may be illustrated directly by the examples of typical Chris- 
tians, or analogically by the examples of worldly men bent on 
success in their pursuits. In the latter case, we have, in fact, 
an a fortiori argument used illustratively. 

Now I have said that one purpose of illustration is convic- 
tion, the convincing of the judgment. And we find that all 
classes of illustrations, even metaphors, have some argumen- 
tative force ; for they are founded on resemblance, which is 
the basis of all reasoning. But this argumentative force is 
more distinctly appreciable in the case of examples. An ex- 
ample is one of a class. The speaker makes a general asser- 
tion, — declares that a whole class of objects have a certain 
quality. Then he brings forward some one member of that 
class, and shows that in this instance the assertion holds good. 
But in doing this he is not merely throwing light on his asser- 
tion ; he is offering some proof of it. And if he be able to go 
on, giving example after example, he may make the proof so 
strong as to exclude all reasonable doubt, — each example con- 
tributing its share toward the hearer's conviction. Suppose 
you wish to prove that the vision of the holy presence and 
glory of God tends to humble the soul of the good man with 
a sense of personal unworthiness. You cite the case of Job 
(xlii. 5, 6), that of Isaiah (vi. 1-5), that of Simon Peter (Luke 
v. 1-8). And every such instance makes your proposition not 
only clearer and more lifelike, but more reasonable and con- 
vincing. 

The rhetoricians remind us that one use of argument is to 
show the possibility of performing such an act or of pursuing 
such a course of conduct as will lead to a desired end. First 
prove that the end is desirable ; then that it is practicable. And 
it is here that the argument from example is peculiarly forcible. 



ILLUSTRATION— CLASSES, DISCOVERY 213 

Show the despondent soul, for instance, that the Christian life 
may be lived, by showing that it has been lived. The com- 
munity around you and the Bible in your hand will furnish 
abundant examples of— the difficulty of holy living? Yes; 
but also of its practicability. 

Accordingly we may class illustrative figures and symbols 
as rhetorical and examples as logical illustrations. 

II. Where and How shall We Find Illustrations? 

Every preacher feels his need of them. If not from the 
time he begins to preach, experience will soon show that ex- 
planation and argument are not enough. He must use figures 
and examples, or preach to a large majority of uninterested 
hearers. Shall he quarrel with this state of things, and wish 
that men had more taste for the abstract and the ratiocinative? 
Rather let him adapt himself to men as they are — as God 
made them. So we have to cast about us and see what con- 
crete and pictorial forms can be given to spiritual realities. 

Sometimes, indeed, the sermon as a whole will be illustra- 
tive. It will be a setting forth of some Bible character or 
event, — Balaam, Eli, Barnabas, the death of John the 
Baptist, the Greeks at the feast (John xii. 20-22), the heal- 
ing of the lunatic child. These are evidently themselves 
examples, illustrations. They illumine and make real certain 
great truths in human character, in divine providence, in 
redemption. And no pulpit themes are likely to be more 
interesting to the people. Commonly, however, the search for 
illustrations is not a search for themes, but for materials to be 
used in their development. Where, then, shall we find them? 

Not in things wiknown to the congregation. The reason for 
this is evident. An illustration is a likeness : something less 
familiar and real to the mind is likened to something more so. 
But if that to which the unfamiliar thing is compared is itself 
unfamiliar or even unknown— how can darkness illumine 
darkness? 

Two favorite sources of illustrative material, with a former 



214 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

generation of preachers, were ancient history and mythology. 
It was apparently thought desirable to give a flavor of learning, 
a classic tone, to the sermon, both in quotations and illustra- 
tive matter. Says the Rev. John McNeill concerning the 
pastor of his boyhood, in the Free Church of Scotland : " It 
got to be a hackneyed phrase in the ears of us lads, — 'You 
remember in classic story.' We had never heard of it before, 
so we could not possibly remember it. But it was a fine, 
pompous, learned way of putting things." At any rate, it was 
unfit. " As Ithaca was too small to satisfy the noble soul of 
Ulysses, who pined even in his old age for wider spheres and 
more romantic enterprises, so does the emancipated soul of man 
resent the inevitable narrowness " . . . ; " Antaeus-like, his 
strength is got by touching his mother " ; " The old story 
over again: brutal centaurs breaking up the marriage feast 
of the Lapithae " ; " Like the dogs of Actaeon, your evil 
appetites and passions will turn against your own soul and 
devour it " ; — such are some of the more familiar allusions to 
" classic story " ; but how many of even the best-educated 
people in your congregations will know or care anything about 
them? Probably you are not entirely familiar with them 
yourself. There is an abundance of better material to be had. 
Equally to be avoided is the pedantry of scientific illustra- 
tions. It will do us no harm to know something about pro- 
toplasm and spectrum analysis. But do not suppose you are 
forthwith to refer to these subjects in your pulpit, in order to 
interest some possible student of science in the congregation. 
He will probably take but a languid interest in such references 
(for the best part of him, as of all men, is not scientific, but 
human) ; and as for the rest of the congregation, forty-nine 
fiftieths of them can have but the dimmest notion of what you 
are talking about. " But I shall first give a brief explanation 
of the unfamiliar fact of science which I propose to make use 
of." Be sure, then, that you do it simply and skilfully. And 
it will indeed be a feat accomplished : to acquaint an un- 



ILLUSTRATION— CLASSES, DISCOVERY 215 

scientific hearer with a wonder of modern science so that it 
may make some truth of religion easier for him to get hold of, 
— all in a few sentences from the pulpit. 

It is true, no fixed line can be drawn between popular and 
scientific knowledge. The facts of common observation and 
the facts of science shade off into each other by insensible 
degrees. A goodly number of phenomena and laws of nature 
once known to none but the learned few — and a short time 
before not even to them — are now more or less familiar to 
people generally : the shape and motions of the earth, for 
example. In these fields you may gather at pleasure ; but to 
bring illustrations from a field not yet thrown open to the public 
is to commit the rhetorical blunder of ignotum per ignotius. 
A good criterion will be to consider, " What illustration would 
I use in explaining this subject privately to this or that person? " 

There is a common stock of illustrations, somewhat analogous 
to the swarm of trite religious phrases with which every 
preacher's mind is beset. To require that these shall be abso- 
lutely rejected would be idle. For here again the question 
may be asked, What is the common stock? and just where is 
the division-wall that separates it from every man's private 
treasury? Our illustrations are usually more or less new and 
original — just how much so we ourselves cannot tell. Still 
we may be prepared to recognize such as are really worn out ; 
and may somehow quicken them into life, utilize them as sug- 
gestive of something better, or refuse altogether their proffered 
service. 

Moreover, that which is extremely trite to one person may 
be fresh and forcible to another. It is possible that you have 
heard so often of the apostle John in old age carried to the 
church and delivering the exhortation, " Little children, love 
one another " ; of the sculptor who said, " There's an angel in 
the stone " ; of the artist who painted Innocence and Guilt, 
and found that the two were one ; of the member of a Con- 
necticut legislature who moved, in a time of solar eclipse, 



216 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

when it was thought that the world was about at an end, that 
" the candles be brought in," etc. ; of the Hindu mother in 
the olden time casting her babe into the Ganges, — it is quite 
possible that both the congregation and yourself are so 
familiar with these incidents that you could hardly hope to use 
them with interest and effect. If so, let them alone. But if 
not,— if they are still alive to you, and will probably be so to 
many hearers, — let them do service still. 

I would make a similar remark with respect to books of illus- 
tration. Touch them lightly. Use them, if at all, for sugges- 
tions, rather than by way of direct appropriation. You know 
why : the materials they furnish, all neatly classified and la- 
beled for whosoever may be in need, will not be really yours. 
They will not be of yourself , as those are that come naturally, 
through intellectual and spiritual attraction, or have been 
wrought out in your own experience. Besides, they will en- 
courage your creative imagination in its natural inertness, and 
thus do it no small injury. I fear the Enchanted Ground of 
a good many preachers is the Lazy Hills. 

" In the Lazy Hills are trees of shade 

By the dreamy brooks of sleep, 
And the rollicking river of pleasure laughs 

And gambols down the steep ; 
But when the blasts of winter come, 
The brooks and the river are frozen dumb." 

And it is only this spirit of drowsy indolence, combined per- 
haps with an uneasy feeling of self-distrust, that prompts the 
seeking of such aid. It becomes needless when you will that 
it shall be so. Deal trustfully with your imagination, and it 
will reward you with a continuous summer-time of productive- 
ness. "The brooks and the river" will never be "frozen 
dumb." 

The same may be said of the illustrations that occur as 
illustrations in your general reading. Do not covet them. 



ILLUSTRATION-CLASSES, DISCOVERY 217 

Some you will assimilate and use as occasion may suggest, in 
your own way, probably with no recollection of their origin. 
But unless they either belong to the common stock or have 
been thus assimilated they are not properly yours; and their 
authorship must be acknowledged, — a simple " It has been 
said," or other word of general acknowledgment, being pref- 
erable ordinarily to the mention of the author's name. 

But the vast world of books and periodical literature is open 
to you as a source of materials for illustration. The news of 
the day will supply them. Make the experiment : take up the 
first newspaper that comes to hand and see how many illus- 
trations of spiritual truth its history of the world of to-day 
furnishes. Biography and church history are full of them. 
Read the life of any eminent Christian with an eye to making 
this use of it. You will be surprised at its riches. And with 
how much more intelligence and sincerity can you relate an 
incident or refer to a fact when you know the whole life of 
which it formed a part. But above all other books in matter 
of illustration, as well as in all other matter of preaching, are 
the Scriptures. You cannot plagiarize from the Bible. Use 
freely all its wealth, both of substance and of forms, for the 
salvation and upbuilding of the people. It is their Book, — 
not the antiquary's, nor the scholar's, nor the reader's, but all 
men's ; and it is your business in every possible way to put 
them in possession of it. Not only an incomparable book of 
human life, but the Book of the Divine Life, it can never be- 
come obsolete. Here is the heart of man laid bare in its 
deepest and most thrilling experiences. Here is the record of 
eternal life which God has given us in His Son. Here is great 
store of metaphors, comparisons, parables, examples, imaging 
the truth ; and these all are yours, freely to receive and freely 
to give. " Now these things happened unto them by way of 
example; and they were written for our admonition" (i Cor. 
x. u). Take, for instance, the parables, and those other 
great utterances of the Incarnate Word, the miracles of Jesus. 



218 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

A deep and appreciative acquaintance with these alone would 
afford a supply of the finest illustrative material. Study them 
for this purpose. 

Then, too, what a book of illustrations is your own life! 
Use that ; in all modesty, but plainly and unaffectedly, with- 
out mock humility. " If you lose your plan, fall back on your 
experience," was the advice of an old-time preacher. As a 
rule, however, the experience is to be used in illustration of the 
plan, rather than in default thereof. And what better illustra- 
tive proof could we offer of the Gospel as the power of God 
unto salvation? 



LECTURE X 

ILLUSTRATIONS— DISCOVERY, USE 

IN addition to the sources of illustration enumerated in the 
last lecture, I would now mention the facts of common ob- 
servation. Appearing, as they do, in endless number and in 
ever- varying forms, to all men, and to each man a little differ- 
ent, according to his circumstances and individual tempera- 
ment, these facts constitute an open and limitless harvest-field 
of illustrations. The every-day pursuits of men, their vocations 
and avocations, are brimful of concrete expressions of the 
things of the Spirit. The whole world, both of nature and of 
human nature, is an Interpreter's House, resplendent with sym- 
bols of the invisible and eternal. In your own home, at the front 
door and at the back door, in the shop and the market-place, 
in garden and field and woods, in the railroad cars and in the 
street, summer and winter, day and night, are myriads of them, 
all full of meaning to whosoever has the key of interpretation. 
Whittier tells us that in early youth, through the influence 
of a volume of Burns that fell into his hands, he learned where 
to look for poetry : " I found that the things out of which 
poems came were not, as I had always imagined, somewhere 
away off in a world and life lying outside the edge of our own 
New Hampshire sky — they were right here about my feet and 
among the people I knew. The common things of our com- 
mon life I found were full of poetry." A similar discovery 
needs to be made by every young preacher. In the common 
219 



220 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

objects and occurrences around you— within a radius of twenty 
yards of where you are now sitting— are untold treasures of 
philosophy, science, religion, happiness, opportunity, and of 
that endless poetry of the pulpit, illustration. 

" We need but open eye and ear 

To find the Orient's marvels here ; 
The still, small voice in autumn's hush, 
Yon maple wood the burning bush." 

In the last few months two young preachers have asked me to 
recommend them books from which to get illustrations; and 
the one wished a history and the other a mythology. Their 
motives doubtless were good, — and I should be slow to shut 
the door in the face of any seeker of knowledge, — but none 
the less were they making the young scholar's mistake, search- 
ing in books for what they could find of better quality, more 
usable and more adaptable to their purpose, in the world about 
them. Look round you. In this room are the materials for 
a hundred fresh and forceful illustrations. All we need is the 
power to see them. 

One inestimable advantage of illustrations from every-day 
life is that the things from which they are taken are so familiar 
as to attract but little attention to themselves. For, just as the 
evil tendency in the use of images in worship is to stop at the 
image and adore that, — worship through images degenerating 
into image- worship,— so the chief danger in the use of illustra- 
tions is that the hearer may stop at the illustration and not pass 
by means of it to the truth itself. Thus, instead of getting 
knowledge through figures and examples, he would be getting 
knowledge of them. Obviously this is most likely to occur 
when the matter of the illustration is strikingly novel or inter- 
esting. This was Charles G. Finney's reply to his ministerial 
associates who reproved him, in his early ministry, for referring 
so often to the various occupations of the farmers and me- 
chanics to whom he was preaching. " Why don't you illustrate 



ILLUSTRATIONS— DISCOVERY, USE 221 

from ancient history," they asked, " and take a more dignified 
way of illustrating your ideas? " He replied, " If my illustra- 
tions bring forward anything new and striking, the illustration 
itself will occupy the minds of the people, rather than the truth 
I wish to illustrate." 

Still again, one of the best sources of illustrative material is 
the assembled congregation. No conscientious preacher will 
enter his pulpit unprepared ; but a part of his very preparation 
will be an openness to present impressions, a readiness to take 
advantage of whatever thoughts are suggested in the act of 
preaching. The public speaker will be a public thinker. 
Why should not the things he sees and hears from the pulpit 
serve at once as illustrations of the truth he is delivering? You 
have heard, perhaps, of a gathering cloud or a crash of thunder 
being so used by Whitefield and others ; but there is no need 
of waiting for such unusual and startling occurrences. Any 
kind of weather outside and any kind of temperature within, 
the sunshine or shadow on the church floor, the lamp-flame, a 
restless or a sleeping child, — the simplest circumstance, — may 
be suggestive enough. Take an example from Dr. Deems : 

" To Abraham and Lazarus and Paul heaven is not now 
among the unseen things. It is as visible to them as earth is 
to us. As plainly do they see the tree of life beside the river 
as I now see the trees which grow beside the windows of this 
church. They see the general assembly and church of the 
first-born as plainly as I see this congregation. They behold 
Jesus in His real personality as plainly as I now see in that 
chancel the bread and wine which are to be our eucharistic 
feast to-day. The angels of the Lord, as we are taught in 
Holy Scripture, encamp round them that fear Him. In this 
holy house, there in that organ-loft, there among those orphan 
children in the gallery, they have pitched their white tents to- 
day. Perhaps they crowd this pulpit. I cannot see them. 
You cannot see them. But they see one another. Your lit- 
tle girl may be among them, and my little boy. They see one 
another as plainly as I saw the children on whom fell the 
waters of baptism at that font to-day."" 



222 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Did not Jesus make use of such illustrations? " Lift up your 
eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white already unto 
harvest" (John iv. 35). "And He called to Him a little 
child, and set him in the midst of them, and said . . ." 
(Matt, xviii. 2, 3). " Behold the birds of the heavens. . . . 
Consider the lilies of the field " (the Sermon on the Mount). 

Of course you are not to make this kind of object-lessons a 
specialty, and much less are you to make it an affectation. 
All must be done with simplicity, and will be if you are thor- 
oughly in earnest. 

Much more may facts and circumstances suggested by the 
congregation serve the purpose of immediate illustration. 
The people into whose faces you are looking, if you know them 
and are interested in them, will represent their occupations, 
their home life, their recent experiences, and thus will offer 
many a fact illustrative of the truth that you are even now 
preaching to them. Nor need any one's name be called, or 
any impertinent personality be indulged in. 

But there is another question, — how to find illustrations. Is 
this an art that may be learned? How to see with one's own 
eyes to what outward things the kingdom of heaven may be 
compared— must we not regard it rather as a gift of genius, 
uncommon and unacquirable? Indeed, has not the greatest 
of rhetoricians declared, in his Poetics, that the happy use of 
metaphor is something " which cannot be acquired, and which, 
consisting in a quick discernment of resemblances, is a certain 
mark of genius"? I have only to say that, if this be true, 
you may safely act, on the assumption that you are one 
of the geniuses. The way to find metaphors, and all other 
kinds of illustrations, is to keep looking for them, and to wel- 
come any that come unsought. It can be done by us all. 
There is a universal " genius " for resemblances. What is 
needed in addition is that higher gift of genius, " the infinite 
capacity for taking pains." One of the best illustrators, of the 
preachers I have known, assured me that naturally he had " no 



ILLUSTRATIONS— DISCOVERY, USE 223 

imagination." Dr. William M. Taylor gives a somewhat 
similar account of himself : " If I may speak from my own 
experience, there is no faculty which is more susceptible of 
development by culture than that of discovering analogies. 
When I commenced my ministry it was a rare thing with me 
to use an illustration." And he goes on to say that, under the 
stimulus of two books which he got hold of — one of them by 
Dr. Guthrie — he "began to look for spiritual analogies in 
everything " ; and the unconscious power rose into activity 
when called for, and served him freely. But here is a much 
more remarkable instance : " I can say for your encourage- 
ment that, while illustrations are as natural to me as breathing, 
I use fifty now to one in the earlier years of my ministry. For 
the first six or eight years, perhaps, they were comparatively 
few and far apart. But I developed a tendency that was 
latent in me, and educated myself in that respect ; and that, 
too, by study and practice, by hard thought, and by a great 
many trials, both with the pen and extemporaneously by my- 
self, when I was walking here and there. Whatever I have 
gained in that direction is largely the result of education." So 
says the most perfect master of illustration in the modern 
pulpit, Henry Ward Beecher. 

Get first-hand knowledge. Look upon nature, and espe- 
cially upon human life, with a sympathetic eye. Look into them 
with love and imagination. Learn to take a hint. Learn to 
ask, What is this like in the spiritual sphere? When our 
Lord said, " Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? " 
was it for His own sake He asked, or for the sake of His 
hearers? It was to start the inquiry in their minds. 

And do not spare the pains necessary to make sure of the 
facts from which your illustration is derived. This of itself 
will give it something of freshness and reality, while the lack 
of this may be fatal. I once heard a retired sea-captain, one 
of my church-members and most interested hearers, remark 
that he often detected mistakes in pulpit references to life on 



224 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the ocean. It was a timely caution, showing the importance 
of truthfulness and accuracy in the preacher's maritime allu- 
sions — as in all others ; and I have gratefully remembered the 
kindly old weather-bronzed sailor as one of my many homiletic 
instructors. Another was a venerable minister who told me 
of a sermon preached by him in his first charge from the text, 
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." He 
had been brought up in town, and was not conversant with 
rural affairs. " Now," he said, " if you sow sparingly you will 
reap sparingly, and if you sow bountifully you will reap in like 
measure. For illustration, if the farmer sow only two or three 
bushels of wheat to the acre, the crop will be small ; but let 
him sow ten or twelve bushels to the acre, and he may expect 
an abundant harvest." The preacher was at a loss to under- 
stand what the country people found so amusing in his re- 
marks, till it was made plain to him after church. I have 
heard the Gulf Stream spoken of in a pulpit illustration as a 
stream of fresh water in the briny ocean ; and a stone em- 
bedded in the trunk of a tree described as gradually carried 
upward by the growth of the tree. Some of such blunders 
may be excusable ; many are not ; all are undesirable. 

In the case of incidents gathered from newspapers and 
books, have regard to their probable truthfulness. Do not 
accept as trustworthy every story, however strained and un- 
natural, that appears in print. Many are myths. Many of 
the incidents, for example, that would be given in an ordinary 
book of illustrations bear no marks of authenticity. The dying 
exclamation of Julian the Apostate, " O Galilean, thou hast 
conquered " ; Martin Luther climbing the Holy Stairs and 
starting to his feet on hearing the words, " The just shall live 
by faith " ; the fruitless prayer of Queen Elizabeth on her 
death-bed, "Millions of money for a moment of time," — are 
examples. It would seem, indeed, that death-bed scenes and 
sayings are to be received with special caution. Some are 
authentic and of distinct illustrative value, but others are either 
falsely colored or altogether apocryphal. 



ILLUSTRATIONS-DISCOVERY, USE 225 

A few days ago I read in a newspaper the following ac- 
count of " How a Beautiful Hymn was Written " : 

" One day Mr. Wesley was sitting by an open window, look- 
ing out over the bright and beautiful fields. Presently a little 
bird, flitting about in the sunshine, attracted his attention. 
Just then a hawk came sweeping down toward the little bird. 
The poor thing, very much frightened, was darting here and 
there, trying to find some place of refuge. In the bright 
sunny air, in the leafy trees of the green fields, there was no 
hiding-place from the fierce grasp of the hawk. But seeing 
an open window and a man sitting by it, the bird flew, in its 
extremity, toward it, and, with a beating heart and quivering 
wing, found refuge in Mr. Wesley's bosom. He sheltered it 
from the threatening danger and saved it from a cruel death. 

" Mr. Wesley was at that time suffering from severe trials, 
and was feeling the need of refuge in his own time of trouble 
as much as did the trembling little bird that nestled so safely 
in his bosom. So he took up his pen and wrote that sweet 
hymn: 

' Jesus, lover of my soul, 
Let me to Thy bosom fly, 
While the waves of trouble roll, 
While the tempest still is high.' " 

A pleasing little story ; but unworthy to be used, in the pul- 
pit or elsewhere, because it cannot be verified and probably 
does not contain one word of truth. 

Be as imaginative as possible, but discerning and truthful 
withal. Use no counterfeits, either in argument or illustration. 
The thoughtful and truth-loving hearer is pained by them, 
and his confidence in the teachings of the pulpit weakened. 

Another word. One important part of your ever-growing 
and ever-dissolving Homiletic Note-book will be entitled " Il- 
lustrations." Let it always be so. Note down faithfully this 
kind of sermon stuff as it comes to hand. Do so at least till 
you no longer feel the need of it— if that time ever comes. 
And while not denying yourself the ready aid of "scissors and 
paste," you may be sure that the more imprinted matter this 
and every other part of your book contains, the more fully 
will it be your own. 



226 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

III. How shall We Use Illustrations? 

Having the material at hand, what can we do with it? The 
people, rest assured, do not care for its intrinsic value, any 
more than for the intrinsic value of food not yet prepared and 
put within reach, — of wheat on the plains of Dakota. Good, 
as a descriptive term, is relative ; it means good for something. 
Those are not good illustrations, no matter how much excel- 
lent substance may be in them, that are not so worked up and 
so handled as to be effective. Well chosen and well put, are 
the requirements. 

i. It is easy to have too many. Illustrations are not like 
probable arguments,— going well together in a series, the more 
good ones the better. Usually two are better than three, and 
one better than two. Says Dr. South : " Which three power- 
ful incentives, meeting with these three violent affections, are, 
as it were, the great trident in the tempter's hand, by which he 
strikes through the very hearts and souls of men ; or as a 
mighty threefold cord, by which he first hampers and then 
di-aws the whole world after him, and that with such a rapid 
swing, such an irresistible fascination upon the understandings 
as well as appetites of men, that, as God said heretofore, ' Let 
there be light,' and there was light, so this proud rival of his 
Creator and overturner of creation is still saying in defiance 
of Him, ' Let there be darkness,' and there is darkness " 
(sermon on " The Light Within "). Now what is gained by 
thus calling up an image in the hearer's mind, only to displace 
it immediately by another, and then that by another on the 
same subject? Not definiteness of impression, certainly. 

To quote an instance from a more recent source, Spurgeon 
has said concerning metaphorical illustrations : " They should 
not be too numerous. . . . Some men seem never to have 
enough of metaphors ; each one of their sentences must be a 
flower. They compass sea and land to find a fresh piece of 
colored glass for their windows. . . . Flowers upon the table 
at a banquet are well enough ; but as nobody can live upon 



ILLUSTRATIONS— DISCOVERY, USE 22? 

bouquets, they will become objects of contempt if they are set 
before us in lieu of substantial viands. The difference between 
a little salt with your meat and being compelled to empty the 
salt-cellar is clear to all." Here we have four metaphors in 
immediate succession to illustrate the principle of moderation 
in the use of metaphor,— an admirable example of the viola 
tion of a principle in the very act of enforcing it. 

The fact that your numerous illustrations are all pleasant 
enough to hear — that people will continue to listen — by no 
means settles the case in their favor. The child on your knee 
will say, " Tell me another story," as long as you have any more 
to tell, and longer. The question is, What does he get from 
them, except a pleasing titillation of his fancy? The grown- 
up child, likewise, will listen well to stories ; nevertheless he 
may hear too many for his profit. 

According to Campbell, in his " Philosophy of Rhetoric," 
there is no source of nonsense in orators and poets equal to 
excessive indulgence in metaphor. " Nothing is more certain," 
he says, " than that this trope, when temperately and appositely 
used, serves to give weight to the expression and energy to the 
sentiment. On the contrary, when vaguely and intemperately 
used, nothing can serve more effectually to cloud the sense 
when there is sense, and by consequence to conceal defect 
where there is no sense to show. And this is the case not 
only where there is in the same sentence a mixture of discor- 
dant metaphors, but also where the metaphorical style is too 
long continued or too far pursued." Dr. Campbell then under- 
takes to give the " philosophy " of this fact, with which I 
need not detain you. I will say that what is here affirmed of 
metaphors is substantially true of illustrations in general {ex- 
amples may probably be regarded as exceptions to the rule) ; 
and there never was a time, perhaps, when the need of laying 
emphasis on this truth of rhetoric was as great as at present. 
Compare representative sermons of the present day with those 
of any past period in the history of preaching, and you will 



228 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

probably be inclined to characterize this as the period of il- 
lustrations. But the good work is often poorly done by being 
painfully overdone. It is well to have something better than 
the tallow candles of former days, but not to suspend an elec- 
tric lamp from every square yard of the ceiling. 

Especially, do not construct any constituent part of your 
sermon with reference to an illustration. " We have heard," 
wrote a committee of supply concerning a young preacher 
who had been recommended to the pulpit it represented, " that 

Mr. constructs his sermons by first collecting a number 

of telling illustrations and then building his sermon around 
them. Is this true? If it is, he is not the man for us." I 
have not " heard," but have reason to suspect, that something 
of this sort is true of some parts of a good many present-day 
sermons. But there is no need of so shameful a sacrifice of 
symmetry, tone, and strength. Gather up the solid substance 
of thought and doctrine, and let the discussion move along its 
proper logical line, no matter what alluring incident or meta- 
phor may practise its enchantments upon you. Illustrate 
your sermons, but do not indulge in the weakness of sermon- 
izing your illustrations. 

2. It is easy to have them too long. Why should eight or 
ten of the few precious minutes of a sermon be occupied with 
an anecdote of which three fourths is verbiage and irrelevant 
circumstances? So with figures. Let them be bright and 
brief, "not too far pursued." A common mistake of the 
young preacher is to suppose that long quotations and elabo- 
rate figures will give solidity and weight to his sermon. They 
only make it heavy. 

3. Whatever may be neglected, let pertinency be observed. 
Resist the temptation to introduce an illustration, whether 
or no. If it do not fairly elucidate that for the sake of 
which it is ostensibly employed, get another or have none. 
Even silks and laces out of place are no better than 
rubbish. 



ILLUSTRATIONS-DISCOVERY, USE 229 

4. There are some points worthy of notice in the literary 
form of an illustration. 

The preface should usually be— wanting; and, where one is 
needed, as informal as possible. Dr. Joseph Parker declares 
that as soon as he hears a preacher say, " My beloved breth- 
ren, let us illustrate this by one of the most beautiful and 
affecting anecdotes which it was ever my privilege to hear," 
he makes up his mind " to endure a dreary recital of very 
painful nonsense." That is hardly a caricature ; and this I 
know is not : "I am indebted for the following illustration to 
a work entitled ' The Tongue of Fire, or, The True Power of 
Christianity,' by the Rev. William Arthur." Nor is this : " I 
will here relate an incident that I have read, not only because 
it is very affecting in itself, but because it will illustrate the 
subject under consideration." No "painful nonsense" fol- 
lowed either of these prefaces, but each had a decidedly leaden 
effect on " the following illustration." 

Brilliancy of style is not to be coveted here, nor anywhere. 
Here certainly, even when genuine, it is better adapted to 
hinder than to advance the true purpose. I have heard a 
professor of physics say that- he preferred to make his lecture- 
room experiments as simple as possible. He had seen stu- 
dents so delighted with what was called a "brilliant experiment" 
— colors flashing and sparks flying — and so filled with admira- 
tion for the brilliant experimenter as to lose sight of what it 
was all for. A similar result is apt to occur in the case of a 
showy verbal illustration. 

But clearness, pointedness, condensation, suggestiveness of 
style, — these are wholly appropriate and diligently to be 
sought after. 

The application may often be very brief, or even entirely 
omitted,— just as a fable may be more impressive for having no 
moral appended. The illustration may shine brightly enough 
in its own light. Put in other cases an application will be 
needed ; and it may require more skill than the illustration it- 



230 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

self. Here, too, let the preacher apply a good test of his 
moral earnestness. Is he really trying to carry his point, — to 
effect the conviction and persuasion of his hearers? Then 
will he not be content to entertain them with a pleasing figure 
or story. He will be careful both to show what it means and 
to bring the force of it to bear upon the specific object of the 
sermon. Moody's illustrations are excellent in this respect, as 
in most others. They are energetically applied. You may 
open any of his little volumes almost immediately upon such 
an example as the following : 

" I was in an eye infirmary in Chicago some time ago, be- 
fore the great fire. A mother brought a beautiful little babe 
to the doctor — a babe only a few months old — and wanted the 
doctor to look at the child's eyes. He did so, and pronounced 
it blind — blind for life — it will never see again. The moment 
he said that, the mother seized it, pressed it to her bosom, and 
gave a terrible scream. It pierced my heart, and I could not 
but weep ; the doctor wept ; we could not help it. ' Oh, my 
darling,' she cried, ' are you never to see the mother that gave 
you birth? Oh, doctor, I cannot stand it. My child! my 
child!' It was a sight to move any heart. But what is the 
loss of eye ight to the loss of a soul? I had a thousand times 
rather have these eyes taken out of my head and go to the 
grave blind than lose my soul. I have a son, and no one but 
God knows how I love him ; but I would see those eyes dug 
out of his head to-night rather than see him grow up to man- 
hood and go down to the grave without Christ and without 
hope. The loss of a soul! Christ knew what it meant. 
That is what brought Him from the bosom of the Father; 
that is what brought Him from the throne ; that is what 
brought Him to Calvary. The Son of God was in earnest. 
When He died on Calvary it was to save a lost world ; it was 
to save your soul and mine." 

Here is the critical point,— the opportunity to turn the forces 
of imagination sharply upon the conscience and the will ; and 
often it is but slightly improved. Is not this one reason for 
the proverbial facility with which hearers remember the illus- 



ILLUSTRATIONS-DISCOVERY, USE 231 

tration and forget the purpose for which it was employed? 
The latter, in many cases, does not receive sufficient emphasis. 
What wonderful directness and penetrative force in the appli- 
cations of our Lord's parables! "Which of these three, think- 
est thou, proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers? 
And he said, He that showed mercy on him. And Jesus said 
unto him, Go, and do thou likewise" (Luke x. 36, 37); "So 
is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward 
God" (Luke xii. 21); "And I say unto you, Make to your- 
selves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness ; 
that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal 
tabernacles " (Luke xvi. 9). In this, as in all things, may we 
learn of Him on whose lips dwelt the perfect word of wisdom 
and edification. 

Read Spurgeon's " Art of Illustration." 



LECTURE XI 



PERSUASION 



BY the persuasive process in preaching we mean the exci- 
tation of motives. For persuasion is addressed to the 
will, and its materials are motives ; that is to say, it is by 
motives always and only that the will is influenced. Know- 
ledge and conviction are not enough. To know one's duty is 
not to do it, to see is not to move ; and the preacher's aim is 
to induce men to move, to influence them toward action. 

Is persuasion, then, an important part of preaching? This 
is much the same as asking whether conduct is an important 
part of life. " One thing only troubles me," says Marcus 
Aurelius, "lest I should do something which the constitution 
of man does not allow, or in the way which it does not allow, 
or what it does not allow now." But why need we seek wis- 
dom of even the noblest of ancient moralists on this subject? 
We have it within ourselves, — the universal witness of con- 
science. And what is the supreme purpose of the Bible but 
right character, right conduct? It is "a lamp unto our /<?<?/." 
The Law, the Prophets, the Gospel, have as their one end, in 
the case of every man, the life of God in the soul ; and the 
outward expression of this inner life is Christian conduct. 
" Who will render to every man according to his works " 
(Rom. ii. 6). How far is Christianity from being a system of 
mere intellectualism or emotionalism! " Thy will be done on 
earth, as it is in heaven." To hear the words even of the in- 
232 



PERSUASION' 233 

carnate Wisdom of God is not to be wise : " Every one that 
heareth these words of Mine, and doeth them, shall be likened 
unto a wise man." 

No Bible doctrine is too glorious for every-day use. Some 
of the sublimest conceptions of Christian truth from the great 
Apostle's pen are introduced incidentally by way of persuad- 
ing to some simple daily duty (2 Cor. viii. 7-9 ; Eph. v. 25- 
33; Phil. ii. 3-10; Titus ii. 9-15). In the mind of Paul 
these supreme truths of revelation found their end only when 
transmuted into conduct, into life. 

In like manner a truth and its practical application is the 
type of all preaching. The whole movement of pulpit dis- 
course is represented by such Scripture passages as the fore- 
going, or, in more condensed form, by such as these : " Repent 
ye ; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand " (Matt. hi. 2) ; "And 
let us not be weary in well-doing : for in due season we shall 
reap, if we faint not " (Gal. vi. 9) ; "I was dumb, I opened 
not my mouth ; because Thou didst it " (Ps. xxxix. 9). 

Persuasion, then, is the ultimatum of preaching. All else is 
subsidiary ; this is the end. No other conception of it can be 
formed by the earnest and spiritually minded minister. " For 
one," says Bishop Pierce, " I cannot preach much at best, but 
I cannot preach at all unless I have good hope of achieving 
results. I want to see impressions, effects, fruits, sinners 
awakened, souls converted, the church happy." And the lan- 
guage of Blaikie, in his history of " The Preachers of Scotland," 
is none too strong: " It would mark something like a new era 
of pulpit power if preachers realized the obligation to persuade, 
and coveted this power as the best of pulpit gifts." 

In our study of exposition we saw that in a sense all 
homiletic processes are expository,— all begin in exposition. 
We now discover a sense in which they are all persuasive, — 
all end in persuasion. But we include under the present title 
that process only which is immediately persuasive ; not the 
preparatory steps for exciting the motives, but the actual 



234 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

excitation of them. Nothing less than this is, strictly speak- 
ing, persuasion. 

Now motives sustain a relation to the will analogous to that 
which proofs and arguments sustain to the intellect. A proof 
is a reason for belief; a motive is a reason for action. 

The will stands compassed about by sundry systems of 
necessity ; but itself is no part of such a system. It is super- 
natural and free. It may choose one of two. This is the 
testimony of the ultimate authority in knowledge, the testimony 
of consciousness. Hence it is everybody's belief, as every 
one's unstudied actions and language prove. It is the dis- 
honored belief even of those theologians, like Calvin and 
Jonathan Edwards, and those philosophers, like the material- 
ists, whose system of thought demands its denial. 

But an essential condition for the action of the will is the 
presence of motives. To choose between two objects in the 
utter absence of motives would be blind, spontaneous action, 
— not the act of a rational will. 

I have reminded you that motives are reasons for action. 
A child is falling in front of a runaway horse : why do you 
rush to the rescue? In order to save the imperiled child. 
This is the end in view ; and so it is the reason for the act, 
and may be fitly called the motive. But what moved you to 
seek this end? Compassion. Had there been no such feel- 
ing in your heart, you would have pursued your way on the 
sidewalk, uninterrupted and unconcerned. Accordingly we 
call this feeling, likewise, a motive. Now it is evident that 
a motive in one of these senses involves the corresponding 
motive in the other sense. We never choose an end till some 
feeling acts upon us as an impulse ; and, on the other hand, 
an impulse to choose is always an impulse to choose something, 
to choose some end. 

Regarding motives as reasons for action, we may call them 
rational; regarding them as feelings that prompt action, we 
may call them impulsive. I have used the term in the first 



PERSUASION 235 

sense in the statement that motives are the materials of per- 
suasion. I shall use it in the second sense in the classification 
of motives which follows. 

All motives are feelings, but only some feelings are motives ; 
and these are those feelings that have in them the element 
either of moral obligation or of desire. We shall not notice 
them all, but only such as may be given in answer to our first 
main inquiry : 

I. What Motives are Suitable to be Addressed in 
Christian Preaching? 

There are several ways of finding out. We may first of all 
turn to the Scriptures, and see to what motives prophets and 
apostles and, above all, the Master Himself, appealed. We 
may read the sermons of wise and successful preachers with 
the same purpose. Nor must we neglect to study man, 
and to make a continual study of men, — watching meanwhile 
the effect of our own preaching, that we may learn practically 
what considerations, what feelings, incite men to repentance 
and holy living. 

The result of our investigation will be nothing novel or 
startling, but in general terms as follows : Christian motives 
are, — self-love, duty, love to fellow-men, love to God. 

i. Self-love is such a regard for our own being as will 
prompt us to seek that which is best for ourselves. This 
good, when properly understood, is always seen to be conso- 
nant with the good of others. The perversion of self-love is 
selfishness, which may be described as such a depreciation of 
our own being as will influence us to seek the gratification of 
our desires without reference to that which is really best either 
for ourselves or others. Selfishness antagonizes both love to 
our fellow-men and to ourselves,— is destructive alike of others' 
good and our own. 

To desire life, food, home, property, society, esteem, freedom 
from pain, is to love one's self. But there are better things, 
— righteousness, usefulness, Christlikeness of character; and 



236 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

to desire these is to love both one's self and others. Now to 
seek the lower ends in disregard of the higher— to be cowardly, 
voluptuous, ambitious, covetous, vain— is to pamper the lower 
self and to dishonor the moral and spiritual self ; and this is 
selfishness. 

Discriminate clearly between these two dispositions, self-love 
and its perversion, selfishness. They are often confounded. 
Says Frederick Robertson, for example : " It is a low virtue, 
prudence, a form of selfishness; yet prudence is a virtue." 
Surely not a virtue at all, if a form of selfishness. It is a 
form of the love of one's self. 

To desire that we may avoid hell and find a home in 
heaven, when we depart this life, is self-love. At the best it 
is self-love ; it may be selfishness, and thus defeat its own 
object. Let a man have as his idea of heaven, not the eternal 
state of knowledge, righteousness, and love, not the commu- 
nion of redeemed and holy spirits, not perfect service and son- 
ship to God, not the joy and glory of his Lord, but some 
fancied scene of immunity from pain, and of enjoyment hardly 
above the physical, — and it may well be that he will seek 
it selfishly. He may try to get his own soul eternally saved 
(as he understands salvation) to the neglect of other souls, — 
bestowing thought and anxiety, prayer and labor, upon that, 
when the time has come to lose himself in Christian love for 
his fellows and whole-hearted devotion to the precious will of 
God. He may be striving to make his calling and election 
sure, in forgetfulness of the truth that the Christian's calling 
and election are to a righteous, loving, Christlike life. 

All personal hopes and fears, whether relating to the life 
which now is or to that which is to come, are of the nature of 
self-love. They all may, and often do, take the degenerate 
form of selfishness ; and to be selfish is to be sinful. 

2. You may be sure, standing before a congregation, that 
the persons into whose faces you look not only feel the pres- 
sure of many and diverse desires upon their will, but experi- 



PERSUASION 237 

ence continually a very different impulse to action : they know 
the feeling of moral obligation, the sense of duty. In some it 
is strong ; in others feeble ; in them all it is present, to a 
greater or less degree, a controlling power. You will make 
no mistake in assuming in all your hearers, young and old, 
godly and ungodly, the existence of this conscience. They will 
understand your words when you exhort them to do this or 
that — to control their appetites, to be just and kind, to wor- 
ship and serve their Creator — because it is right They will 
feel the impulsion of a motive clearly distinct from all others, 
and utterly refusing to be classed or confounded with them, 
—not, " It would be agreeable to do this " ; not, " It is expected 
of me" ; not, "It is according to the proprieties of life " ; not, 
" Some one compels me to do it " ; but, " I ought to do it." 
The same thing would be true, though not to the same extent, 
if you stood before a congregation of barbarians. 

Appeal to this motive. Stir the sluggish consciences of men 
with moral truth. Urge them to do right in all circumstances 
and at all hazards. " Not only because of the wrath, but also 
for conscience' sake." Urge the Christian life upon them, 
with all its duties and with all its moral sublimity, as the life 
that men ought to live. 

3. In unbroken harmony with the law of duty is the spirit 
of love. And this will be accentuated in our preaching, so far 
as we follow the New Testament examples, more than the 
other. Does not our Lord declare that it is all (Matt. xxii. 
35-40)? To seek the highest good of men, as their brother, 
and to live so as to please God, as His child, is to do in the 
spirit of love all that is demanded by the law of duty. It is 
the most perfect possible fulfilment of the law. 

Now among these motives the preacher, in the process of 
persuasion, is continually making choice. On what principle 
shall he choose? when shall he appeal to this motive and when 
to that? 

In the first place he must make his appeal to motives actu- 



238 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ally existing in the person whom he would influence. In 
other words it is incumbent upon him to observe the principle 
of adaptation. The preacher must meet men where they are, 
— not where he is, nor where he would prefer them to be. 
He must adapt his instrument, Christian truth, to the material 
upon which he works, to the disposition and character of the 
hearer. 

Urge the disobedient and unloving child to obey, by the 
consideration that he will please his father : the effort is 
vain, because the appeal is made to an imaginary, not a real 
motive. And may we reasonably expect a different result in 
urging the profligate and obdurate sinner to repentance, on 
the ground that by such an act he would please and glorify 
God? You might do better by an appeal to his conscience, 
his sense of the Tightness of repentance. But in all probability 
you will have to begin with the motive of self-love ; and with 
that in its lowest form,— with the /ear of toss and pain. " Ex- 
cept ye repent, ye shall all in like manner perish " (Luke xiii. 
3). " If thy hand or thy foot causeth thee to stumble, cut it 
off, and cast it from thee : it is good for thee to enter into life 
maimed or halt, rather than having two hands or two feet to 
be cast into the eternal fire " (Matt, xviii. 8). 

In like manner even regenerate Christian men are not equally 
susceptible to every class of Christian motives. Some respond 
to the commands of duty more earnestly than to the sweet 
persuasions of love; of others the converse is true. Some, 
again, have much natural kindness of heart, which makes it 
easier to love their neighbor with moral love, while they show 
little natural tendency toward spiritual reverence or devotion ; 
and others, like Jacob of old, are more inclined to believe in 
God than to deal justly and kindly with their fellows. These 
natural endowments and defects will still appear after conver- 
sion, as relative strength and weakness, perfection and imper- 
fection. Then, too, there are different stages of development 
in Christian character. The better you know people, and 



PERSUASION 239 

especially the people to whom you preach, the more likely are 
your appeals to be wisely directed. Let me ask, Why did 
Jesus, whose very breath of life was love to others and to God, 
appeal so powerfully to the motive of self-love in His hearers? 

But, secondly, the preacher, in the application of the Word 
of God to motives, must observe the principle of their compar- 
ative excellence. Appeal to higher motives in preference to 
lower. Is it not thus that all wise and true teachers do? 
For example, they dispense with close personal supervision 
and corporal punishment, and put the youth on his honor, as 
soon as ever his sense of honor can bear the strain. By trust- 
ing him they expect to make him more worthy of confidence. 
By showing him that he is expected to act truthfully and 
honestly they influence him toward that course of action, and 
thus make him what they wish him to be. 

Here, as elsewhere, one of the conditions of growth is ex- 
ercise. Call a motive into action, and the next time it will act 
more readily- and strongly. Let it remain quiescent, while 
other motives are stirred into activity, and after a time that 
which it has of strength will be taken away from it. 

Is it necessary to begin with men on the plane of self-love, 

— even of self-love as they understand it, probably not the 
highest and best? It is equally necessary to raise them above 
it. There is a type of Christian preaching by no means un- 
common that occupies itself disproportionately with the lower 
motives. Rewards and punishments are relied on almost ex- 
clusively, not only to awaken the sinner, but to perfect the 
virtues of the regenerate heart. Personal accountability, the 
advantages of godliness, the terrors of retribution, are well- 
nigh the sole considerations by which the Christian life is 
recommended. If Paley's once wide-spread definition of virtue 

— "doing good to mankind, according to the will of God, for 
the sake of everlasting happiness " — is not explicitly professed, 
it might be professed consistently enough with the preacher's 
uniform presentation of the Gospel. But this is to linger and 



2-iO THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

remain among the rudiments of Christian doctrine and experi- 
ence. Indeed, it is almost inevitably to deteriorate self-love 
with the base alloy of selfishness. Here is the spiritual defect 
— is it not? — of one of the few greatest books on the Chris- 
tian life, the Pilgrim's Progress. 

A nobler motive than this mixture of self-love and selfish- 
ness is duty. There is no taint or suspicion of selfishness — 
not even of "celestial selfishness "—in an active and accurate 
conscience. The man who turns away from sin and gives up 
himself to God and His service because of the conviction 
that this is the right life for a man to live, is fearing God and 
working righteousness ; and in whatever nation his lot has been 
cast, is accepted of Him. May the number of such high- 
souled servants of God be increased a thousandfold! 

There is a loneliness in duty. It is not communion ; its sym- 
bol is the prompt and steady footstep in some appointed path, — 
not the grasping hand, nor the eye kindling with the warm light 
of joyful enthusiasm. But who could not wish that we had more 
of its controlling power in the church of God? Too prevalent 
are easy and flexible views of our baptismal covenant, and 
indifference to the many claims of moral obligation. Too 
rare is that strength and heroism of character which comes 
through voluntary subjection to the divine Lawgiver, — the un- 
flinching obedience, the unconquerable will. " But Peter and 
John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right 
in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, 
judge ye" (Acts iv. 19). 

But again, there is a type of preaching in which the cold 
and monotonous iteration of "duty, duty," from Sunday to 
Sunday, with only a subordinate presentation of the distinc- 
tive and supreme truths of the Gospel, or scarcely more than 
incidental reference to them, leaves unsatisfied the hunger and 
thirst of the soul for God. Yes, for God Himself, for the 
communion of the Spirit, for the Eternal, the Father in heaven, 
not commanding us from without, but abiding within. The 



PERSUASION 241 

moral law is constantly proclaimed, and that is well ; but not 
"the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus"— and that is ill. 
Is it Christian preaching? The cry of the Psalmist was, " My 
soul is athirst for God, for the living God." The voice of 
the Christ is, " I delight to do Thy will, O my God; yea, Thy 
law is within my heart" Shall we not preach the Father's 
redeeming love, the Christ who came that we might have life 
very abundantly, the Spirit who helps our infirmities? Shall 
we not say continually to the struggling soul, in the name of 
the Father and the Saviour and the Spirit, " Thou mayst and 
thou canst" as well as, " Thou must." In brief, should not our 
preaching be the preaching of the Cross? The reign of 
Christ in the heart will produce that perfect state of experi- 
ence and character in which all duty is done in the spirit of 
love, and the law of God becomes our joy and song. And the 
hope of future reward will be glorified into the hope of being 
filled with the mind of Christ and wholly conformed to His 
image. "When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, 
then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory." 

" What must I do to be saved? " is a good question ; but it 
is not a good question to be asking forever. Out of the 
saved man's heart arises another : " Lord, what wilt Thou have 
me to do? "—and another : " Lord, what may I do for Thee? " 
It is well, doubtless, to " trample underfoot that enthusiastic 
doctrine that ' we are not to do good unless our hearts are free 
to it '" ; but always to feel free to it in the spirit of sonship to 
God is a higher attainment. Duty may be a conscious bur- 
den; but love is so divine a life in our nature as makes the 
weight of duty easy to bear. It works a holy unconscious- 
ness of yokes and burdens. 

Observe how the Old Testament motives, as to their general 
character, are superseded by those of the New Testament,— 
the temporal by the eternal, the sensible by the spiritual. 
Note also the various motive-feelings to which the truth is 
applied in the New Testament revelation ; and see how they 



242 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

range all the way up from an unenlightened self-love to a love 
that seeketh not its own, but rejoices exultingly in the truth 
and service of God. 

As an example of the operation of this rising scale of 
motives, recall the experience and character of the first disci- 
ples. Their Christian life began on no higher level than that 
of an ill-understood self-love. Said Simon Peter to his Lord, 
— doubtless, representing as usual, the general sentiment of 
the Twelve, — " Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee ; what 
then shall we have? " (Matt. xix. 27.) What did they want? 
Some place of honor and influence in an earthly Messianic 
kingdom. But let us turn from the Gospels to the memoirs 
of these same disciples of Jesus, now become apostles, in the 
Book of Acts : " And when they had called the Apostles unto 
them, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the 
name of Jesus, and let them go. They therefore departed 
from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were 
counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name " (Acts v. 
40-42). They had got something very different from what 
they had been dreaming of two or three years before. But 
nevertheless they were more than satisfied. Never till now 
had they known the fullness of Christian life and blessedness. 
They had learned the mighty truth of the Cross. They had 
been made partakers of the Holy Ghost. Christ Himself was 
now their Reward. " That I may know Christ," was their 
ambition. Not to be on His right hand or His left, but to 
have His mind and spirit, just to be with Him, to serve Him, 
to be counted worthy of suffering for Him, — this was now their 
supreme and satisfying good. The servant would like to have 
pay ; but these men were able now to receive their Lord's 
word, " Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends." I 
have asked why it was that Jesus in His ministry so often ad- 
dressed the motive of self-love. Let me now ask : If the 
ministry of Jesus had taken place after Pentecost instead of 
before, to what motives in the disciples may we suppose that 
He would uniformly have made His appeal? 



PERSUASION 243 

Nor is any disciple ready to become an apostle till he has 
this spirit in him. But if he have it, he will preach it ; he will 
recognize in other Christians the same excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord that has become the mas- 
ter principle of his own life. And this is our ministerial call- 
ing, — that we should be thoroughly furnished ministers, not of 
the old, but of the new covenant. 

One word more. A question may arise as to the suitable- 
ness of a motive not yet mentioned, — natural affection. Is it 
expedient to urge a parent to repentance or religious faithful- 
ness by love for his child ; or a child by the desire to please 
and gratify his parent? I should say : Natural affection often 
has in it an element of moral love, in which case there is no 
question ; and even when destitute of this motive, it may be 
used to start a soul toward the right path,— to arouse reflection 
and sensibility, and induce a receptive attitude toward moral 
motives. Persuade the parent, then, to lead the Christian life 
for his child's sake. You may do it freely. But in the case 
of the child, the corresponding motive must be employed with 
great carefulness, lest it lead to an unmeaning profession of 
faith. 

II. What is the Way of Access to the Motives? 

It is through the intellect, and by the help of the emotions. 

i . Through the intellect. The desires and the sense of duty, 
all the higher feelings, indeed, are dependent for their existence 
upon knowledge. Sensations are not : hunger, sleepiness, taste, 
hearing, for example, are direct results in the sensibility of some 
excitement of the nerves. But a man cannot desire his high- 
est good without some previous knowledge of it ; cannot feel 
morally obliged to choose a certain course of conduct, refusing 
its opposite, without some knowledge of them both ; cannot 
love his fellow-men with a love that impels him to seek their 
highest good, without knowing what manner of beings they 
are, and what that supreme good is ; cannot love God in 
total ignorance of His nature and His relations to man- 
kind. 



244 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Hence it is an evil thing for the soul to be without know- 
ledge. And the object of the various processes of sermon- 
making which we have heretofore considered is to give 
instruction, to communicate truth. " Because the Preacher 
was wise, he still taught the people knowledge." But in per- 
suasion the immediate object is to develop and set free the 
latent force of Christian motives, and deliver it upon the will. 
It is not to instruct; nor is it to address the nerves of the 
congregation, and thus excite a delicious or tumultuous or 
terrifying sensation of sound : it is to use conviction for the 
purpose of exciting impulses to action. 

Let us bear in mind, then, that the motives to which the 
Gospel is addressed cannot be reached directly. They will 
respond only to ideas of some sort or other. Suppose, for 
example, you wish to persuade people to do kindnesses to the 
poor. What shall be the manner of your appeal? You might 
prove to them the beneficial reactive influence of kind deeds 
upon their own nature ; and thus reach the motive of self-love. 
Or you might remind them of God's commands in this mat- 
ter ; and reach their sense of duty. Or you might describe the 
sad limitations and positive evils of poverty ; and reach their 
pity. Or, still again, you might quote and explain such a pas- 
sage of Scripture as that wonderful word of our Lord, " Inas- 
much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My 
brethren, ye have done it unto Me " ; and reach their love for 
the Saviour. What, then, has been done? In each case you 
have used the reasoning power, or the memory, or the imagi- 
nation, or the Scripture knowledge of your hearers, as a means 
of getting at an affection or a sense of duty. You have set 
before them as sharply and affectingly as possible certain 
ideas. You have pressed these ideas close up to the sensibility 
— expecting their presence there to be a power — that the re- 
quired motive-feeling may awake under their touch. This is 
persuasion ; and so it is through the intellect. There can be 
no other method. 



PERSUASION 245 

2. By the help of the emotiotis. Here is a class of feelings that 
do not act as motives. They are such, e.g., as the feeling of 
beauty, of humor, of joy, of sorrow. Laughter and tears are 
signs of emotion ; and, indeed, it is characteristic of the emo- 
tions that they tend toward some sort of physical expression. 

Now what has the preacher, or any other orator, to do with 
these feelings? Nothing; except incidentally or as subsidi- 
ary to the quickening of the motives. The excitation of the 
emotions affords pleasure,— even the emotion of sorrow, or of 
terror, if its object be sufficiently idealized by distance in space 
or time. This explains the agreeableness of a certain kind of 
preaching : touching the motives lightly, it starts the chords of 
emotion — beauty, wit, joy, pathos, awe — into energetic vibra- 
tion. That a whole congregation should be " delighted " with 
a sermon is no proof that the sermon has accomplished its true 
object. It is sometimes an indication of the contrary. 

Unquestionably it is true that the public speaking whose 
predominant aim and effect are to excite emotion of any kind 
whatever, may be very good poetry or acting, but is not ora- 
tory at all. Just as, on the contrary, poetry and acting whose 
predominant aim and effect were to excite motives and deter- 
mine lines of conduct would be poetry or acting transformed 
into oratory. 

How, then, is the excitation of emotions related to the ob- 
ject of Christian preaching? As I have just intimated, it may 
serve as a useful auxiliary to the excitation of motives. It 
"draws." It brings people to hear us, and thus makes it 
possible to do them good. But chiefly it wins attention to the 
truths preached, and makes the motives more susceptible to 
their power. You would rather undertake to persuade a cheer- 
ful, even-tempered man to put his hand to some difficult en- 
terprise than to persuade a man of despondent temperament. 
The cheerfulness and the despondency are simply emotions ; 
but the former opens the way to motives which it is the ten- 
dency of the latter to enfeeble and obstruct. Or it may be 



246 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

that in time of sorrow a person will be more easily persuaded 
to turn his thoughts toward certain great truths and to choose 
certain great objects, than in the fullness of satisfied affections 
and hopes. So with the lighter emotions which the preacher 
— by a sympathetic voice and manner, by showing the beau- 
tiful or the wonderful side of things, by pathetic incidents and 
images— may be able to waken. Let them not be despised. 
Let them be employed as subsidiary to the delivery of the 
truth upon the motives. That is where they are useful. 

Now, if this distinction between motives and emotions be 
accepted as valid, a good deal that is commonly said in com- 
mendation of " the address to the feelings," " the appeal to the 
passions," " the raising of the emotions," would seem to be 
confusing or misleading rather than helpful. What " feelings " ? 
what "passions"? what "emotions"? Why not say, "the 
address to the motives," and keep the young speaker's atten- 
tion upon the distinctive character of oratory as the art of 
persuasion? The tremor of emotion is but subservient to the 
strong and steady movement of the motives. 

Surely it behooves the preacher to use all possible wisdom 
in making his way to the innermost seat of human accounta- 
bility and character, the free, rational, moral will. He finds 
many souls indifferent to the real substance of his message. 
It is easy to change indifference into antagonism, easy to 
provoke resistance. Let him please them, let him raise 
emotions of beauty and sublimity in their minds, let him draw 
tears to their eyes, if thereby he can better gain access to the 
mighty motives of duty and love. But with this purpose solely 
let it be done. For a preacher to stop with the excitation of 
emotion would be as if a soldier should lay down his arms 
because, forsooth, he had successfully fought his way to an 
advantageous point of attack. 

Read Part II., " Of Persuasion," in Whately's " Rhetoric." 



LECTURE XII 

THE PROPOSITION — IMPORTANCE, CONTENTS 

FROM the text we are now to disengage the subject, or 
theme, and express it in language. The subject thus 
verbally expressed becomes the proposition. The one is in 
the mind; the other on the tongue or the paper. And this 
embodiment of thought in speech is not only necessary for its 
communication to others, but helpful also to one's own intel- 
lectual vision. We think in unspoken words ; to speak them 
is to make the thinking stand out more clear and distinct. It 
is thinking aloud — just as thinking is speaking to one's self. 

Our study of the proposition will embrace three topics. 

I. Its Importance. 

It might be supposed to be needless. For we have already 
seen that the text is the subject ; and inasmuch as it is the 
subject expressed, must it not also be recognized as the prop- 
osition? What need, then, of another, — a proposition of a 
proposition? 

The answer is, first, that sometimes there is no need. It is 
the common practice in textual sermons to take the text as the 
proposition and develop it accordingly. And even when the 
sermon is to be topical, the text may present the subject in the 
best possible form for immediate discussion. It may be a 
simple declaration or question, already well adapted to the 
purposes of a proposition. E.g., in constructing a topical ser- 
mon on the words, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," 
247 



248 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

or on such a passage as " How shall we escape, if we neglect 
so great salvation? "—a proposition of your own would be 
useless. 

But the text sometimes needs an interpretative restatement. 
If it were read from the Hebrew or the Greek it would have 
to be translated to the congregation. The fact that it is read 
from the English Bible by no means implies that it does not 
need to be interpreted and restated. This restatement of the 
subject as given in the text is the proposition. 

Still again, in a topical sermon we do not usually wish to 
preach the whole text, but only some one of its topics; and 
in this case it is clearly incumbent upon us to state the par- 
ticular topic to be discussed. 

Not infrequently sermons are delivered concerning which 
the most attentive hearer is at a loss to know just what truth 
or group of truths the preacher would have him consider. 
Far be it from me to say that such preaching does no good. 
One defect is not fatal, else all our pulpits had as well be 
abolished. We may thankfully believe that a goodly number 
of hearers are like the shopkeeper who could not tell the sub- 
ject of the sermon when asked, but had gone home and 
burned up his false measures. To produce such an effect, 
however, something must have been made plain. Let us try 
to make the whole truth plain and prominent. 

It might be said of two classes of sermons, as some witty 
epigrammatist has said of the university and the college, that 
the one teaches us everything about something, and the other 
something about everything. Intellectually the latter kind of 
preaching is a mist, formless, impalpable, dim, and chill. The 
popular verdict is rendered in such expressions as " Did not 
stick to his text," "A scattering talk," "A good sermon, 
probably, but I couldn't make much out of it " ; and, from 
the more charitable, " He said some very good things." A 
welcome and satisfying preacher is the man who modestly 
states his great Gospel theme, and then distinctly unfolds it to 



THE PROPOSITION— IMPORTANCE, CONTENTS 249 

the understanding and applies it to the heart and conscience. 
One highly important step in this good path is what we have 
now under consideration. Well begun is half done. 

II. Its Contents. 

Here the whole process of exposition would solicit our at- 
tention. For inasmuch as the contents of the proposition are 
gathered from the text, the question is, What is the entire 
and exact meaning of this passage? But we have already 
considered the general subject of Exposition, and need not 
take it up anew. 

The one word I would here emphasize is thought. Think 
deeply on the Scriptures. Fancy is not thought. Memory, 
voluntary or spontaneous, is not thought. Reading is not 
thought. Dreaming, either asleep or awake, is not thought. 
To analyze, to compare, to infer, to see the reality behind the 
symbol, — this is thinking. In the scene before our eyes in the 
external world, how many objects do we see distinctly at any 
one time? Perhaps none. Certainly not more than one ; and 
that the one on which the eyes are focused and the attention 
fixed. We cannot even number half a dozen objects without 
counting them one by one. In the whole field of vision there 
is but a single clear and distinct spot. So with intellectual 
vision. Hold your mind steadily to that spot— to the center 
of its field — and keep looking there till the mental eye enlarges 
to take in all the light. This is thinking; and this is what 
we are called upon, as expounders of God's written Word, to 
do. 

Which will you be, a slavish imitator or an earnest and 
thoroughgoing thinker? Without thought, even with a goodly 
store of linguistic learning in our minds, or with the best of 
commentaries new and old in our hands, we shall see little 
more in the Bible than the form or medium of the truth. As 
George Herbert, quaint and consecrated poet-parson, has said, 

" A man that looks on glass 
On it may stay his eye, 



250 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, 
And then the heavens spy." 

Through the glass of Scripture language the infinite heaven 
of truth is revealed to the devout, steady, and far-seeing 
eye. 

Do not fly to your " helps " as soon as the text is selected. 
First think it through unaided. Then, before finally deciding 
to make a sermon on it, turn to some good commentary and 
see if haply you have blundered in exegesis. The commen- 
tators have more biblical learning than you are likely ever to 
acquire ; and they are your servants. Use them freely, but do 
not be used by them. 

Here is where many of us are feeble and sickly, and many 
sleep in self-indulgence. A few well-meaning efforts, and off 
goes the truant mind, allowed to play truant instead of being 
compelled to do its work. So our thinking is tangential, or 
would be were it not so crooked and cloudy. Or at best we 
find some well-worn groove, and go circling round in sight of 
the text, instead of pressing persistently toward and into it, 
patiently opening our way into the very heart of the truth. 
The word that is used for the searching of the Scriptures 
{anakrino) by the Bereans (Acts xvii. n) is very strong and 
significant. It is variously translated in the New Testament, 
— to ask questions, to examine, to discern, to judge. Taken in 
the fullest sense, it means to examine thoroughly, to question 
the matter under investigation from every point of view, as a 
witness is questioned in a court of justice, and to form a judg- 
ment with the carefulness and discrimination of the judge on 
the bench. Whether the word was applied to the Bereans in 
all this fullness of meaning may be fairly doubted ; but there 
can be no doubt as to its full and entire application to the 
Christian preacher with respect to the texts out of which he is 
to preach God's Word. 

Let us now, from the standpoint of their contents, classify 
propositions, both admissible and inadmissible. 



THE PROPOSITION-IMPORTANCE, CONTENTS 251 

i. Admissible Propositions. 

(i) A perfect proposition is one that is substantially coexten- 
sive with the text. It leaves out nothing. The two are set 
over against each other like synonymous words. Take the 
following as examples : Text, " Marvel not that I said unto 
thee, Ye must be born anew " (John iii. 7) ; proposition, " The 
Reasonableness of the New Birth as a Necessity to Spiritual 
Life." Text, Matthew vii. 7,8; proposition, " All True Prayer 
is Answered." 

(2) A good proposition is 

(a) One that embodies the principal or most striking truth 
of the text. Perhaps the passage as a whole is not susceptible 
of any brief and complete explanatory statement. Or perhaps 
we purpose to preach only its principal truth. We therefore 
select this as the most prominent and precious portion of the 
contents of the passage, and make it our theme. One ex- 
ample will be enough : Text, " I am Jesus whom thou perse- 
cutest " (Acts ix. 5) ; proposition, " The Oneness of Christ 
and His Church." 

(a) Another class of good propositions are those which 
evolve a general principle out of a particular instance as fur- 
nished by the text. The Bible is so largely historical that in 
unnumbered cases principles are taught by means of examples. 
The single fact incloses and under proper treatment yields 
up the world-wide truth; and it has been recorded, we may 
believe, for this very purpose. To take off the outer coverings 
of fact and circumstance is simply to strip away the husks for 
the sake of the living kernel within. E.g., your text is the 
excuse offered by Adam and Eve for their sin (Gen. iii. 1 2, 13). 
But our first parents were not exceptional characters in such 
a matter. Their human nature is the human nature of us all. 
So we have as our subject "The Tendency of the Sinner to 
Excuse his Sins." In like manner, from Genesis xxviii. 19 
your proposition would not be " The Sanctification of Luz by 
the Felt Presence of God," but " How the Felt Presence of 



252 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

God Sanctifies our Daily Life." Or, again, when David re- 
plies to Araunah, " Nay ; but I will surely buy it of thee at a 
price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my 
God of that which doth cost me nothing" (2 Sam. xxiv. 24), 
it would be a very inadequate idea of his refusal to regard it 
as a mere illustration of David's personal nobleness of nature. 
The instance is not unique, but typical. David's feeling with 
reference to cheapness in religion gives us the general subject 
of " Cheap Religion " ; or, more specifically, " The Sacrificial 
Element in Worship " ; or, if you please, " Love to God Shown 
by Making Cost for Him." 

Sometimes, indeed, we consider the instance simply as 
representing the character and life of the man. Especially 
may this be done with interest and profit in the case of inci- 
dents in the life of our Lord. Phillips Brooks, one of whose 
chief traits as a preacher was his keen discernment of princi- 
ples in acts and circumstances, preached on " The Silences of 
Jesus " from the text, " But He answered her not a word " 
(Matt. xv. 23). 

Note also that the particular instance out of which the gen- 
eral principle is evolved may be a precept as well as an inci- 
dent. For example, it was to slaves that Paul sent the thrilling 
word of counsel, " With good will doing service, as unto the 
Lord, and not unto men " (Eph. vi. 7). But we do not hesi- 
tate to apply the precept to ourselves. The principle of which 
it is the practical expression is the same, to whomsoever ad- 
dressed, — to the slave serving his master, the minister serving 
his people, the king serving his subjects. 

The preacher, then, constantly does what Aristotle says of 
the poet, — "gets the general truth out of the particular fact." 
Nor is this method peculiar, by any means, to the poet and 
the preacher. I had the pleasure, not long since, to hear a 
lecture on one of our common microscopic plants, the proto- 
coccus phtvialis. The speaker said, " Now I am going to do 
as our friends the clergymen do, in this lecture ; they take a 



THE PROPOSITION-IMPORTANCE, CONTENTS 253 

text, and out of that one little text develop a great principle." 
So, after a brief and interesting explanation of the little ob- 
ject which he had chosen as his text, " our friend the biol- 
ogist " went on to show that it illustrated some of the funda- 
mental conceptions in biology. From a one-celled plant 
found in the mud of a roof-gutter, and invisible to the naked 
eye, the skilful lecturer taught certain laws of life. Much 
more from a single Scripture fact or incident may the Chris- 
tian preacher set forth the laws of that higher life of which 
every plant on earth is an humble prophetic type. 

(3) Of merely allowable propositions we may notice four 
kinds. 

(a) Those which embody some truth of the text other than 
its principal or most striking truth. For example : Text, " I am 
Jesus whom thou persecutest " (Acts ix. 5) ; proposition, " The 
Care of Christ for the Church." 

Wide is the difference between a subject and the subject. 
In the interpretation of a parable it is essential, as everybody 
admits, to look first of all for the truth ; but is not the same 
principle of hermeneutics applicable to every verse of the 
Bible? And in using a passage as the basis of a sermon, shall 
we not prefer to take its strongest and most characteristic idea? 

Sometimes it is difficult, or even impossible, to decide as to 
which is the principal or most striking truth of a text. The 
following were offered in this class-room as propositions from 
the words of Simon Peter to the lame man at the Gate Beau- 
tiful (Acts iii. 6) : " How Love Manifests Itself in Caring for 
the Poor," "The Importance of Using Everything to God's 
Glory," " The Service of Love toward our Fellow-men," "The 
Universal Appeal as Answered in the Gospel of Christ," 
" How God Answers True Prayer," "The Believer's Power of 
Enriching Others," " Christ's Glory to be Manifested through 
Human Agency." Which of these would you select as the 
principal truth of the passage? 

(b) Those which state a general principle, as evolved from 



254 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the text, and then confine attention to some specific applica- 
tion of it. The passages of Scripture from which such prop- 
ositions are drawn may be called mottoes (for a motto is a 
general principle of conduct), but they should not be classed 
with accommodated texts. The proper description of an ac- 
commodated text is, that it does not contain the subject of the 
sermon at all, but only suggests it through some association of 
ideas. It is suggestive, not inclusive. But the case of which 
I am now speaking is radically different. The text contains 
a principle which has many applications; and this general 
principle is brought out in the proposition, though with the 
purpose of discussing it with reference to one of these appli- 
cations only. 

Suppose, e.g., you wish to preach on the subject of the 
Sunday-school. So great and fruitful a form of Christian 
work is surely a suitable theme for evangelical preaching. 
True, you may speak of the Sunday-school in various sermons 
on more general subjects. But there may be good reasons, 
also, why a whole discourse should be devoted to this one 
thing ; and there is no reason why it should be preached with- 
out a text. You might select Deuteronomy vi. 6, 7. The 
general proposition undoubtedly is " The Religious Instruction 
of the Young " ; but the special application of it which you 
propose to make is " The Duty of Sunday-school Instruction," 
and accordingly it is to this more restricted proposition that 
you ask attention. Or, for a somewhat different line of 
thought, you might take the words of Christ to the church in 
Philadelphia, as given in Revelation iii. 8. Your proposition 
is " Fidelity to Christ Rewarded by Enlarged Opportunities 
of Usefulness." But a grand example of this principle is 
found in the modern Sunday-school opportunity, and the dis- 
cussion of this subject may make up the body of the discourse. 

From the text, " David, after he had served his own gen- 
eration by the will of God, fell on sleep " (Acts xiii. 36), Dr. 
William M. Taylor preached on " How We Seek, as Tem- 



THE PROPOSITION-IMPORTANCE, CONTENTS 255 

perance Reformers, to Serve our Generation and our God.'' 
From the text, " Glorify God in your body," you may preach 
against licentiousness, gluttony, and intemperance, or you may 
take the last of these vices alone as your theme. From the grand 
personal resolve with which Paul concludes his exposition of the 
casuistic question whether the Corinthian Christians might eat 
food which had been offered to idols, " Wherefore, if meat 
make my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh forevermore, 
that I make not my brother to stumble," you would probably 
preach "The Christian's Regard for the Consciences of 
Others," or " Christian Obligation as to Personal Influence " ; 
but you might, under either of these principles, confine your 
discussion to " Total Abstinence." In his sermon on the text, 
"Redeeming the time" (Eph. v. 16), Wesley, after briefly 
explaining the meaning of the words, proposes as his subject 
" to consider only one particular way of redeeming the time, 
viz., from sleep." 

Now the opposite class to these propositions is 
ic) Such as set forth a general idea or truth, when the text 
presents a less general included under it. The text, e.g., is 
Matthew xviii. 3 ; and instead of some such proposition as 
" The Necessity of Conversion," the subject as announced is 
simply " Conversion." Or the text is " And He spoke a 
parable unto them to the end that they ought always to pray, 
and not to faint" (Luke xviii. 1) ; and instead of "The Duty 
of Perseverance in Prayer," the subject proposed for discus- 
sion is "Prayer," or perhaps "The Duty of Prayer." Dr. 
R. W. Dale, from the text, " Ye also helping together by prayer 
for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of 
many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf" 
(2 Cor. i. 11), discourses on the general subject of "The 
Congregation Helping the Minister,"— assigning to the specif- 
ic subject of the text, " Helping by Prayer," only the place of a 
subdivision. It is as if one were asked to write a description 
of oaks or willows, and responded with an essay on trees. 



256 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

The facility with which young preachers mistake these all- 
inclusive themes for the specific ones given in their texts is 
due partly to the expectation of finding them fruitful. It is 
the mistake of very young writers,— who hand their teacher a 
composition on "Time," or "The World and its Contents," 
rather than an account of the day recently spent at their 
grandfather's in the country. But the rule is, the broader the 
theme the more barren, except in commonplace thoughts and 
expressions. I have heard of a farmer who divided his big 
plantation among his sons as they came of age, and year by 
year at harvest found himself richer for each successive 
diminution of his estate. One may be land-poor. 

Still, there is another side to the question. Very compre- 
hensive themes may sometimes be handled to advantage within 
the ordinary limits of the sermon. The main points may be 
briefly and suggestively developed. Take, e.g., the text, " So 
I prayed to the God of heaven" (Neh. ii. 4). The specific 
proposition is " Prayer in the Midst of Employments." But 
the general subject of " Prayer " might be deduced from the 
text and effectively treated,— perhaps along some such line of 
discussion as the following: (1) A universal instinct of the 
human heart, (2) shown in revelation as an assured privilege, 
(3) a spiritual necessity. 

(d) Those which give an appropriate name to the text, and 
thus in a general way convey its meaning and significance. 
Propositions of this kind are suitable chiefly for textual ser- 
mons. "The Preaching of Philip in Samaria" (Acts viii. 
5-8), "The Character of King Jehu," "The Parable of the 
Seed Growing Secretly," " Paul's Thanksgiving for the Philip- 
pians" (Phil. i. 3),— are examples. 

It is an element of weakness in these propositions that the 
interest which they excite is not personal, but simply biblical. 
Immediately on their announcement most people will feel that 
they themselves are not concerned in them. " Samaria is a 
long way off ; it was a long time ago that Philip preached 



THE PROPOSITION-IMPORTANCE, CONTENTS 257 

there ; what special reason is there for the Samaritans' claim- 
ing our attention through the whole sermon? Put in the 
foreground some great and living truth that concerns us here 
and now," — something of this sort may represent, for example, 
the unspoken comments of many minds on the first of these 
propositions. " The Joyful Effects of the Preaching of Christ" 
would be more interpretative, and would come closer home to 
the mind and feeling of the hearers. 



LECTURE XIII 

THE PROPOSITION— CONTENTS, FORM 

WE have learned something about the first of the two 
classes into which propositions, considered with respect 
to their contents, may be divided. We must go on now to 
study the other class : 

2. Inadmissible Propositions. 

Of these I will mention four subdivisions : 

( i ) Such as set forth a subject which has nop7-oper connection 
whatever zvith the text. Here, of course, is a clear and total 
miss, an absolute failure. But it sometimes occurs. I re- 
member to have heard a sermon on " The Unity of the 
Church," from Matthew vi. 19, 20. 

Now, with the exercise of a little perverse ingenuity certain 
points of connection might be shown, even in these cases, 
between text and theme. It is quite certain, for example, 
that if all Christians would heed the injunction of our Lord 
in Matthew vi. 19, 20, and become more heavenly minded, 
they would be drawn closer together, despite their denomina- 
tional affinities and prepossessions ; and thus, to be sure, we 
have found as our proposition, "The Unity of the Church." 
I have heard a discourse in which the subject of " Consecra- 
tion " was announced from the text, " He that believeth on 
Me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works 
than these shall he do ; because I go unto My Father " (John 
xiv. 12). The preacher, after a brief and, as I thought, cor- 
258 



THE PROPOSITION— CONTENTS, FORM 259 

rect and promising explanation of this great word of Christ, 
remarked that, in order to be qualified for these works greater 
than those of our Lord's ministry, the believer must be a 
wholly consecrated man ; and behold the theme, " Christian 
Consecration "! In like manner, Cardinal Newman finds the 
subject of " Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness " in 
the text, " Now it is high time to awake out of sleep " (Rom. 
xiii. n). His process of deduction is, briefly, as follows : Are 
we spiritually awake? It is impossible to know absolutely; 
but there is a test that may appropriately be applied, viz., 
self-denial. 

By a very moderate amount of this exegetical sleight-of- 
hand one may force any passage of Scripture to point the way 
to almost any theme ; and no doubt it is a convenient expedi- 
ent for some who wish to repreach their sermons without re- 
peating the texts. But it is utterly unworthy of even so poor 
a purpose as that. The earth is similar to the sun, and it is 
a strong attraction that energizes between them; but no as- 
tronomer would announce one of these bodies as the proposi- 
tion of a discourse on the other. It has been excellently said : 
" The whole truth may be read, if we had eyes and heart and 
time enough, in the laws of a daisy's growth. God's beauty, 
His love, His unity ; nay, if you observe how each atom exists, 
not for itself alone, but for the sake of every other atom in 
the universe, in that atom or daisy you may read the law of 
the Cross itself." Does it follow, then, that for a discourse 
on " The Divine Nature " or " The Cross of Christ " we should 
take a daisy or an atom as our proposition ? 

(2) Such as set forth a truth not contained in the text, but 
more or less naturally suggested by it. Wesley deduces a prop- 
osition of this sort from John iii. 8, " So is every one that is 
born of the Spirit." He takes the first word of the passage as 
its pivotal point, " So is every one that is born of the Spirit," 
— that is to say, he possesses this and that trait which prove 
him to be a child of God. Thus we have, as the doctrine of 



260 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the text, "The Marks of the New Birth," which are then 
declared to be faith, hope, and love. It is obvious even to the 
casual reader that the passage has no such meaning. 

When a text is treated in this manner not through an error 
in exegesis, but purposely, it is said to be accommodated. 
There was a time apparently when the pulpit was very gen- 
erally destitute of conscience in this matter of accommodation. 
Osterwald, in his " Essay on the Composition and Delivery of 
a Sermon" (published in 1747), after the discussion of homi- 
lies or expository sermons, remarks : " I shall now proceed to 
those which, in the ancient church, were properly termed ' ser- 
mons,' and where the text is used merely as a pretext to the 
subject for discussion." The charming artlessness of such a 
confession, at least, would be impossible to the homiletic writer 
of the present day. Still the pretext method lingers among 
us, as a relic of the medieval and monkish homiletics, which 
measured the utility of a Scripture passage by the number of 
fanciful meanings that it could be made to suggest. Bishop 
W. Boyd Carpenter, taking as his text John xix. 23, 24, — 
" Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top 
throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us 
not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be," — preaches 
on the uniqueness and harmony of our Lord's (a) religious 
system, (b) system of morality, and (c) personal character. 
Even so robust a mind as that of Charles H. Spurgeon is not 
proof against the temptation to indulgence in the pretext 
method now and then. In his sermon, e.g., on Isaiah xliii. 6, 
" I will say to the north, Give up ; and to the south, Keep not 
back," after a reasonable explanation of the words, he remarks, 
" But my intention is rather to utilize than to expound the 
text," and then goes on to enumerate the things he would 
have his hearers " give up," such ^prejudices, self-?ighteous?iess, 
sins, delays, quibbling, despondency; and, in a corresponding 
manner, the things from which they should not " keep back." 
This the great preacher calls " utilizing " his text. 



THE PROPOSITION-CONTENTS, FORM 261 

But perhaps the most distinguished representative of ac- 
commodation in the use of texts in the present day is Dr. 
T. D. Talmage. A few examples will fairly represent the results 
of this method in his hands. Text, " It is easier for a camel 
to go through the eye of a needle " (Matt. xix. 24) ; subject, 
"The Martyrs of the Needle," — in other words, the oppressed 
and half-starved sewing-women of our great cities. Text, 
"And he made the laver of brass," etc. (Ex. xxxviii. 8) ; sub- 
ject, " How the Gospel Reflects the Moral Features of Man." 
Text, " And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fif- 
ties" (Mark vi. 40); subject, "The Three Groups — the Par- 
doned, the Seeking, the Careless." There is no lack of 
sparkling illustration, of powerful imaginative description, of 
scathing rebuke, of thrilling entreaty, in these discourses. But 
why should their force be weakened at the outset by an unreal 
or whimsical connection with the Scripture passages that are 
supposed to justify and sustain them? Much more to be 
commended is Dr. Talmage's choice of a text for a subject 
substantially the same as the first of the foregoing, on another 
occasion. Text, " So I returned, and considered all the op- 
pressions that are done under the sun," etc. (Eccles. iv. 1); 
subject, " The Despotism of the Needle." 

Dr. Phelps, in his able and exhaustive lectures on "The 
Theory of Preaching," distinguishes three kinds of accommo- 
dation,— that founded on resemblance in sound, that founded 
on metaphorical resemblance, and that founded on resem- 
blance in principle. The two former he unhesitatingly rejects, 
but the third kind of accommodation he regards as at least 
allowable. I will quote you the gist of his argument : " Sub- 
jects must be discussed in the pulpit which cannot be intro- 
duced by a text in any other way, and yet retain the significance 
of the custom of employing texts. Which is better,— to intro- 
duce the duty of sinners to seek eternal life in company with 
Christians by the text, ' He that hath an ear, let him hear,' or 
by the text, ' Come thou with us, and we will do thee good ' ? 



262 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Respecting many themes we have no range of choice. We 
must do one of three things, — we must preach without a text, 
or we must take a general text, which as a text means nothing, 
or we must select an accommodated text" (p. 122). 

To this it might be replied, first, that so far as the example 
cited is concerned, no accommodation is necessary to derive 
the proposition from the text. In the time of Moses, Israel 
was the church of God ; the Christian church of the present 
time is not another church, but the same in a later dispensa- 
tion of divine truth and grace. Hence to invite a man into 
the church to-day because of the good to be received there- 
from is in principle the same thing as to have given him a like 
invitation to join "the church in the wilderness." 

Besides, if this were not so, and a motto, or " general text," 
had to be chosen, it would be quite unnecessary to choose one 
so distantly related to the subject as "He that hath an ear, 
let him hear." There are many passages— e.g., Acts ii. 37-41 
— that would serve the purpose much better. 

Moreover, it cannot be admitted that " a general text as a 
text means nothing." Is it nothing to show that the truth we 
teach is an expression of some deeper and larger truth given 
in the Scriptures? Is it nothing to set forth Christian obliga- 
tion and opportunity, appearing in the incidental forms of the 
present day, in the light of some eternal principle? Would 
Dr. Chalmers's sermon on " The Dissipation of Large Cities," 
from the words, " Let no man deceive you with vain words : 
for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the 
children of disobedience " (Eph. v. 6), have derived greater 
power from the Scriptures if it had been adjusted to them by 
some mere " resemblance in principle " ? Would Dr. Talmage's 
sermon on " Capital and Labor," from the text, " Whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them " 
(Matt. vii. 12)? When Richard Watson preached before the 
Wesleyan Missionary Society on " The Instruction of Slaves 
in the West Indies," from that sublime Christian precept, 



THE PROPOSITION— CONTENTS, FORM 263 

" Honor all men " (i Pet. ii. 17), was the text as such without 
significance or effect? On the contrary, it is the very heart 
and strength of the whole discourse. 

A preacher once took for his text the words, "They of 
Italy salute you," and preached on "The Condition of the 
Waldenses,"— having been requested by that body of Chris- 
tians to " present their good wishes to the American churches." 
Dr. Phelps approves of this accommodation of the text. But 
which, I venture to ask, is the more reasonable and the more 
impressive; to make an appeal for struggling Italian Christians 
under the light and power of some such word of Christ as " A 
new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another ; 
even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another," or 
seriously to propose as a text the salutations of certain Chris- 
tians in Italy in apostolic times to their Hebrew brethren, and 
from that deduce as a theme " The Condition of the Walden- 
ses " ? The fact is, however, that in a case of this kind there 
is no demand for a text at all. The address is not a sermon. 
The attempt to give it the semblance of a sermon has the 
effect only of giving it an air of unreality. No time or place 
is too sacred, nor any speaker too much of a preacher, for 
declaring the sufferings and needs of a struggling or persecuted 
church and making an appeal for pecuniary aid ; but why 
spoil such a Christian speech by beginning it formally with a 
text? 

Let us, then, leave all accommodated texts to those who 
believe in them, or at least feel themselves shut up to the 
occasional and select use of them ; but as to ourselves, let us 
not call a lecture or a mere appeal a sermon, nor ever preach 
without a text, nor ever preach any other than the text an- 
nounced. The text must always be in some proper sense 
inclusive of the subject, never merely suggestive. 

A question might be asked concerning the homiletic use of 
the Gospel miracles. Christ heals a leper, gives sight to a 
blind man, curses the barren fig-tree. Shall we take the nar- 



264 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ratives of such transactions and preach from them Christ as 
the Saviour and the Judge of men? Unquestionably, if we 
believe they were intended to teach these truths ; and who that 
has read the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to John 
can have any doubt on that point? The miracles of our 
Lord have great didactic value. They are parables for the 
eye, epiphanies, words of the Eternal Word. To use them as 
such is to interpret, not to accommodate, them. 

So, likewise, with Old Testament typical history and ritual 
types. 

(3) Such as degrade the text. I have seen a discourse, by a 
bright young preacher of my acquaintance, on " Thorough- 
ness," from the words, " It is finished." Probably the prop- 
osition may be found in the text ; but to propose a theme 
like that from the supreme word of our Lord on the cross, in 
which He declares that the awful work of redeeming love has 
been accomplished, is to my mind inexpressibly painful. 

(4) Such as pass by the truth or truths which constitute the 
real significance of the text and take up some idea of which the 
merest hint is given. For example, what propositions may be 
drawn from Luke xi. 1 ? Plainly enough, such as these : " The 
Need of Prayer," " The Need of Instruction in Prayer," " The 
Necessity of Prayer as Shown in the Example of our Lord," 
"The Union of Example and Precept in the Teachings of 
Jesus," " Unconscious Influence." Also we find here the idea 
of reverence. " When he had ceased, one of His disciples said 
unto Him," etc. But good taste and sound judgment could 
not approve the selection of this as the subject for considera- 
tion : it is too incidentally and obscurely given, as compared 
with the other truths of the text. Or, again, what shall we say 
of preaching on " The Sin of Gloominess " from the precept, 
" Rejoice in the Lord always ; and again I will say, Rejoice "? 
Certainly gloominess is the contradictory of joyfulness ; and 
consequently, if the latter is a duty, the former must be a sin. 
We might treat any Bible precept in a similar manner, for 



THE PROPOSITION— CONTENTS, FORM 265 

every positive term and every affirmative proposition has its 
corresponding negative, and vice versa; but the proper place 
for such " immediate inferences " is the conclusion of the ser- 
mon, not the proposition. 

To pass by the central truth, and the truths most significantly 
grouped about it, and devote the discourse to a subject pre- 
sented in the text only by some remote implication, is either 
a lack or a perversion of homiletic skill. There is some heat 
in ice, but it would be a poor affectation to announce "A 
Lump of Ice " as the subject of a lecture on heat. 

III. Its Form. 

i. As to structure. The proposition may be a declarative 
sentence (a logical "proposition," — expressing a, judgment), 
either affirmative or negative ; or it may be only a name or title 
(a logical " term,"— expressing an idea), either simple or modi- 
fied; or it may be a question,— expressing a desire for infor- 
mation. 

The same subject, it is evident, may be made to appear in 
all these forms, — the only exception being that, in the simple 
titular proposition, the more general subject is expressed, — as 
shown in the following scheme : 

i. Declarative. 

(i) Affirmative. E.g.: "Faith is the Secret of Spiritual 

Power." 
(2) Negative. E.g. : "There can be No Spiritual Power 
without Faith." 

2. Titular. 

(1) Simple. E.g.: "Faith." 

(2 ) Modified. E.g.: "The Necessity of Faith to Spir- 
itual Power." 

3. Interrogative. E.g. : " Is Faith Necessary to Spiritual 

Power ? " 

As to which form of proposition shall have the preference 
in any particular case, your homiletic instinct, which, if al- 
lowed fair play, will become more and more a second nature, 



266 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

may usually be left to decide. I will only offer a few sug- 
gestions, (a) The titular proposition is generally preferable, 
because of its informality and the freer range of treatment 
which it invites. There is danger, however, that this freedom 
will be abused, {b) The declarative, or logical, proposition 
demands belief, and accordingly is naturally followed by proof. 
Hence it is the most suitable for an argumentative discourse. 
(c) The interrogative proposition is modest, tentative, con- 
versational, quickening. For example, compare the proposi- 
tion, "Are Christians Mad?" (Acts xxvi. 25) with "The 
Reasonableness of the Christian Religion." It is specially 
appropriate to unfamiliar subjects, to those that are to be 
treated negatively as well as affirmatively, and to those that 
are likely to excite prejudice or opposition in the hearer's 
mind. It wins sympathy by putting the speaker side by side 
with the hearer, as an inquirer. At the same time it is not 
inconsistent with the very highest authority. It was the 
Teacher of teachers who began His discourse with the inter- 
rogation, " Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and 
whereunto shall I liken it? " 

2. As to language. Here, if nowhere else, it behooves you 
to be a caretaker in the choice of words. Much of our 
preaching may be extempore, some of it impromptu; but he 
would be a bold preacher who should leave the framing of his 
proposition to the moment of delivery. Because these few 
words, standing forth as an interpretative restatement of the 
text, are the germinal truth of the whole discourse. 

Hence the proposition must be free from all verbiage, am- 
biguities, technicalities, pedantry. It must be precise and 
clear ; it must express what you mean, neither more nor less. 
Brevity is very desirable. So the proposition is explicit, not 
obscure, let it be as concise as possible. Take the two fol- 
lowing, offered as exercise-work in this class-room, as examples : 
Text, Acts xvi. 33, 34 ; propositions, " Some Results of Be- 
lieving in Jesus," " The Results of the Transforming Power 



THE PROPOSITION— CONTENTS, FORM 267 

of the Gospel as Shown in the Case of Those who Believe 
and Accept It." The former is the more forcible, pleasing, 
and rememberable. 

To be sure, there may be beauty, — such as comes from per- 
fect adaptation to a worthy end; but a proposition that 
awakens in the hearer's mind the exclamation, " Was n't that 
elegantly expressed! " has missed its aim. Last night a friend 
sent me word to look out of the study window at the oak-tree 
in my yard. It was lovely ; branch and twig and withered 
leaf were all sheathed in ice, and in the soft splendors of the 
winter moonlight shone forth transfigured. But where was 
my tree itself ? Only suggested, shrouded away in a labyrinth 
of crystals. So may a subject of discourse be hinted or sug- 
gested, rather than stated, in a beautiful glow of words. 

Now, what I am thinking of here particularly is metaphori- 
cal expressions. These are often chosen as at once the readi- 
est and the most attractive embodiments of a subject. But it 
will generally be found that your happy metaphor has served 
in the stead of more definite thinking. Ask yourself, "Just 
what do I mean by it? " The answer will make the idea 
clearer to your own mind, — will show, perhaps, that you your- 
self did not quite know what the meaning was. The metaphor 
came too soon ; it brought analogy and vividness where the 
one essential was precision. Who can imagine a more perfect 
figure in which to set forth the power of Christian example 
than the declaration of Jesus, " Ye are the light of the world "? 
But it is a part of its very perfection that it is a figure and 
needs to be interpreted ; and to announce as our proposition 
from this text, " Christians the Light of the World," is simply 
to restate the text without interpretation. In like manner, 
when the Apostle bids us " bear one another's burdens " (Gal. 
vi. 2 ), is it not our first step to inquire into the meaning of 
the figure,— what is a "burden," and what is meant by one 
man's bearing the burden of another? And if so, where is the 
propriety of returning to the figure in the proposition, and 



268 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

announcing as our subject " Burden-bearing " instead of 
" Mutual Helpfulness," or whatever we may believe the 
meaning to be? Or, instead of saying, "My subject is 
'Corruptible Crowns and the Incorruptible Crown'" (i Cor. 
ix. 25), let us say " Corruptible Rewards and the Incorruptible 
Reward," or, coming closer to the heart of the text, "The 
World's Example of Earnestness." 

Nor is it only in the case of metaphorical texts that a metaphor 
may be offered as the proposition. I have heard a sermon 
from John xiv. 1-3, in which the preacher announced as his 
subject " A Casket of Jewels," and then proceeded to " take 
them out," one by one, and present them to the congregation. 

You will be slow to accept my opinions on this point. Let 
me, therefore, sustain them by two excellent authorities. 
Ripley, in his "Sacred Rhetoric," says : "A caution has been 
reserved for the close of this chapter against retaining in the 
statement of a subject metaphorical language which may be in 
the text. The thought conveyed by such language should be 
stated in literal terms, else both the preacher and the hearers 
may become more occupied with the metaphor than with the 
thought itself. . . . Thus, instead of using our Lord's words 
— 'Take My yoke upon you ' — as a string upon which to fasten 
a number of independent paragraphs concerning the yoke of 
repentance, the yoke of faith, the yoke of profession, the yoke 
of righteousness, etc., let the real meaning of this language be 
ascertained. Our Lord was encouraging His hearers to sub- 
ject themselves to His guidance. Let the passage, then, be 
the text of a sermon on ' Subjection to Christ.' " 

Dr. Phelps is even more emphatic : " Why is a metaphori- 
cal description of a crime not allowable in the enactment of 
criminal law ? Why is a metaphorical boundary of real estate 
not pertinent in a title-deed? For a similar reason, figure is 
not becoming in a proposition. Literalness is essential to 
simplicity in anything which professes to be a statement and 
nothing more. . . . Figurative propositions and divisions are 



THE PROPOSITION-CONTENTS, FORM 269 

sometimes vindicated on the ground of their raciness. One 
preacher, martial in his tastes, proposes as his theme ' The 
Great Battle of the Lord Almighty.' Another, in more femi- 
nine mood, proposes to contemplate ' The Rainbow of Divine 
Promise.' A third, of a more practical turn, asks attention to 
' The Sin of Being a Stumbling-block.' ... A sixth meditates 
at eventide, and invites to ' A Walk about Zion.' These, and 
an interminable catalogue like them, many would defend as 
being pithy forms of statement. They prick curiosity ; they 
please fancy. True ; but does this shield them from the cen- 
sure of good taste? I think not, because, valuable as raciness 
of statement often is, it ought not to take precedence of sim- 
plicity. In stating any business in hand, raciness should be 
sought in plainness of speech and directness in coming to the 
point. Figurative hints are out of place " (" Theory of 
Preaching," pp. 342, 345). 

I will add two remarks. The first is, that we must dis- 
criminate between the proposition and the title of a sermon. 
The proposition, indeed, is sometimes used as a title. But 
not always; and a mere title may properly enough take the 
form of a metaphor. It need only hint or imaginatively sug- 
gest the subject of discourse. 

The other remark is, that faded or even fading metaphors 
need not be excluded from the proposition, but only meta- 
phors that are distinctly recognized as such. For instance, 
the words corruptible and incorruptible, in one of the examples 
just quoted, are fading metaphors. To exclude these would 
be to mistake precisionism for precision. 

The study of propositions is an excellent homiletic exercise. 
Let me therefore give some additional examples of propositions, 
admissible and inadmissible, with the request that you classify 
them with respect (a) to their contents and (b) to their structure : 



" Sin in Believers" (2 Cor. v. 17) (Wesley) ; " Christ Never 
Ceased to Pray" (Luke xi. 1); "Religion Natural" (Acts 



270 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

xvii. 27) (Bushnell) ; "There is No Conflict between Christian 
Kindness and Good Judgment" (Matt. v. 42 and 2 Thess. iii. 
10); "Faithfulness in Great and in Small Matters" (Luke 
xvi. 10) (Maclaren) ; "The Significance of Sunday-school 
Work" (Matt, xviii. 5); "Free to Amusements" (1 Cor. x. 
27) (Bushnell) ; " Christianity Mysterious, and the Wisdom of 
God in Making It So" (1 Cor. ii. 7) (South); "Spiritual 
Darkness in Believers" (John xvi. 22) (Wesley); "The Limi- 
tations of Life " (" Remember my bonds," Col. iv. 18) (W. M. 
Taylor) ; " The Power of Selfishness in Promoting the Hones- 
ties of Commercial Intercourse" (Luke vi. $■$) (Chalmers); 
"The Use of Opium and Tobacco" (Col. iii. 17); "The 
Harmony between a Noble Undertaking and a Beautiful Be- 
ginning" ("The Beautiful Gate of the temple," Acts iii. 10) 
(Phillips Brooks); "In what Respects is Love Greater than 
the Greatest Gifts?" (1 Cor. xii. 31); "Paul in Caesarea" 
(Acts xxv. 4) ; " The Confession of Thomas " (John xx. 26- 
29); "The Need which Comes to Men of Simply Being Fed 
by God, of Ceasing from Forthputtingness and Self-assertion, 
and Simply Being Receptive to the Influences which Come to 
Them from Divinity" (John vi. 10) (Phillips Brooks); "Man 
is Such a Being that, a priori, We might Well Expect God to 
be Mindful of Him and to Visit Him" (Ps. viii. 3, 4) (Mar- 
vin) ; " Perpetuity of Christian Influence " (John xi. 26) ; " The 
Intermediate State " (Heb. xi. 39, 40) ; " The Abuse of Sacred 
Things" ("And he called it Nehushtan," 2 Kings xviii. 4); 
"The Superiority of Christianity to All Other Religions" 
("What do ye more than others?" Matt. v. 47) (Hugh Price 
Hughes) ; " The Sinner Exposes to the Power of his Enemies 
that which is Most Precious to Him" ("I have given the 
dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies," Jer. 
xii. 7) ; " The Apostles' Determination to Go Forth as Fishers 
of Men " (John xxi. 3) ; " The Duty of Keeping our Engage- 
ments" (" He will ever be mindful of His covenant," Ps. cxi. 
5); (a) "Was John the Baptist's Life a Failure?" (b) 
" Success and Failure in Life " (Mark vi. 29) ; " The Uniform 
and Necessary Tendency of Thrift to Greater and Greater 
Prosperity, and the Equally Uniform and Necessary Tendency 
of Worthlessness to Deeper and Still Deeper Penury" (Luke 
xix. 26) (Marvin). 



LECTURE XIV 

THE DIVISIONS — PRINCIPLE, DISCOVERY 

DIVISIONS are subordinate propositions. They mark the 
main points of progress in the discussion. Nearly all 
preachers make use of them, more or less; though, as in the 
case of text and proposition, some persons would dismiss them 
from the pulpit as an antiquated and obstructive formality. 

Preaching of the vague and watery type will be found to 
disparage divisions. It must, indeed, from the very instinct 
of self-preservation, — somewhat as a seller of commodities of 
uncertain quantity and quality, in the market, will despise 
weights and measures, and prefer dimness to daylight. He 
would rather not be called to account. This type of public 
speech can lay claim to great antiquity. Cicero describes it 
as it appeared in his day : " Their speech is so confused and 
ill arranged that there is nothing first and nothing second; 
there is such a jumble of strange words that language, which 
ought to throw a light on things, involves them in obscurity 
and darkness ; and the speakers, in what they say, seem in a 
manner to contradict themselves." 

I have reason to believe that some young preachers regard 
divisionless sermons as belonging to " the kind of preaching 
for the times." And if we may trust so competent a witness 
as Dr. Isaac Watts, the same opinion was held nearly two 
hundred years ago. " It is a certain fault in a multitude of 
preachers," he says, " that they utterly neglect method ; or at 
271 



272 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

least they refuse to render their method visible and sensible to 
their hearers. One would be tempted to think it was for fear 
their auditors would remember too much of their sermons, 
and prevent their preaching them three or four times over. 
But I have candor enough to persuade myself that the true 
reason is they imagine it to be a more modish way of preaching 
without particulars. I am sure it is a much more useless one." 
Indeed, it is a new and modish " way of preaching " now, and 
was so then, only because it is so very old, and has long been 
superseded, in the general usage of the pulpit, by a better. 

But to claim that divisions sensible to the hearer are abso- 
lutely essential to good preaching would be a wretched exag- 
geration. Some of the most effective preachers in all churches 
seldom announce them ; and it is difficult sometimes, even upon 
a close analysis of their discourses, to discover an orderly 
progress of thought. When it can be discovered, it is not ap- 
parent to the ordinary reader, and was probably still more 
obscure to the hearers. Read a sermon of this sort ; close the 
volume ; then attempt to recall the outline of discourse, em- 
phasizing the principal thoughts. Try the same process upon 
one whose outline is plainly disclosed ; and you will not need 
to be told which method of treatment makes the truth clearer 
and more rememberable. Still, it would be a daring critic 
who should assert that only the latter class of discourses repre- 
sents truly excellent preaching. 

Again, where the sermon is quite a brief exposition and 
appeal along a line of not unfamiliar thought, say from fifteen 
to twenty minutes in length,— about the time usually taken, 
e.g., in the Episcopal pulpit, — divisions may be needless. 
Charles Kingsley's " Village Sermons " and his " Town and 
Country Sermons " are admirable examples. Many an instruc- 
tive and earnest Gospel message is delivered in this form. It 
is that of the prayer-meeting talk or the exhortation, some- 
what better compacted and unified. But for the most part 
our preaching should be elaborate enough to require that the 



THE DIVISIONS-PRINCIPLE, DISCOVERY 273 

attention of the hearer shall be distinctly directed to the lead- 
ing ideas of the sermon. This will appear, I trust, as we spend 
a few minutes in the consideration of 
I. The Principle of Divisions. 

The necessity of order to the acquisition and communica- 
tion of knowledge gives a law to mental movements which we 
can no more set aside than we can dispense with the three laws 
of motion in the physical world. " Let all things be done 
decently and in order" is as truly a uniformity of the human 
intellect as it is an authoritative Christian precept. In fact it is 
given by the Apostle with special reference to " prophesying " 
and " speaking with tongues." To be scatter-brained is to 
take the path toward irrationality. To think and speak me- 
thodically is to be a gatherer and a giver of knowledge. And 
this necessity, in the very make of our minds, is the underly- 
ing principle of divisions in public discourse. 

Any one who does not make a habit of reading a book 
backward ; or proving his point by flinging forth his reasons 
in an indiscriminate jumble ; or applying a truth before it has 
been explained or even stated ; or delivering an address from 
the introduction forward, or from the conclusion backward, or 
from any intermediate point in either direction, as fancy may 
suggest, — may fairly be summoned as a witness to the neces- 
sity of order in thought and speech. Any one who speaks in 
sentences, using subjects and predicates with their appropriate 
grammatical belongings, condemns himself in every sentence 
he utters as an advocate of intellectual anarchy. 

Every discourse, then, must exist in some determinate and 
organic order. It has been said, " No subject which has been 
put together piece by piece is living." True enough ; but it 
is also true that no subject is living which does not somehow 
come organically " together." Which is more regular in form, 
a leaf or a stone? and which is alive? In nature, organization 
and life are inseparable ; wherever one appears, there is the 
other also, and nowhere else. 



274 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Now what is the demand of "divisions"? Not that the 
sermon, in its various parts, shall be gathered up and mortised 
together, somewhat as a chair or a table is manufactured. 
Not that it shall come into existence through some sort of 
accretion. Stones are formed by accretion ; but life, even in 
the humblest moss or mold, takes in its food, and assimilates 
before using it. The materials of the genuine, living sermon 
are not aggregated ; from whatever source drawn, they are 
taken into the preacher's mind, and by the power of his own 
intellectual and spiritual life, transmuted, and thus fitted for 
their place and function. The process is not mechanical nor 
crystallogenic, but vital. The discourse is not made, but only 
made to grow; it is the natural development and expression to 
others of the truth which lies germinant in the preacher's own 
mind. But who will contend that growth is disorder? or that 
the principal parts of a plant or an animal are not easily dis- 
tinguishable from each other — in the higher types? The de- 
mand of divisions is that the main line of thought shall be 
made distinctly conscious to both speaker and hearer. If this 
result can be reached without divisions, let them be rejected 
as encumbrances. But ordinarily it cannot be ; and divisions 
are no more encumbrances to a sermon than well-differentiated 
organs to one of the higher plants or animals. 

Or, to find an illustration in another sphere of creative 
activity: A picture is not a piece of patchwork. The true 
artist does not think of a fine tree that he has seen somewhere, 
a huge frost-splintered rock that has attracted his attention 
somewhere else, and then a brook, and then a group of clouds, 
and so on, and putting these side by side on his canvas, call 
the product a picture. Looking with quiet, brooding eye upon 
nature, he evokes the spirit of the scene, — instinctively sees 
the ideal beauty, or solemnity, or terror, or aspiration that 
struggles for expression in it ; and lets that spirit of beauty or 
of awe take artistic shape for itself, offering it the use of such 
materials and such skill as he may have at command. But it 



THE DIVISIONS-PRINCIPLE, DISCOVERY 215 

by no means follows that his landscape is so enshrouded in 
dreamy lights and shadows that a rock cannot be distinguished 
from a tree, or one mountain-peak from another. 

I have proceeded thus far on the assumption that the 
preacher has in his own mind a definite plan of discourse, and 
that when he adopts what may be called the method of con- 
cealment, he intentionally avoids making the successive steps 
of his thought known to the congregation. It is also true, 
however, that the habit of concealing the plan tends to produce 
neglect of it on the part of the preacher himself, and thus 
impairs his own thinking. 

Some of us older preachers might tell an instructive experi- 
ence in this matter. I have sometimes taken up a divisionless 
sermon, and, with an uneasy sense that somehow it was sadly 
lacking in completeness and force, asked, " Just what have we 
here, — first, secondly, thirdly, — what is my treatment of this 
subject? " — and have been rebuked to find how meager and 
disjointed a production these simple inquiries exposed. Al- 
most certainly we overestimate the number of thoughts in our 
sermons, as we overestimate the number of people in our con- 
gregations, until we take some orderly account of them. It 
is easy to fancy ourselves traveling intellectually, when we are 
only rambling, and doubling on our own track. " I preach 
about fifty minutes on that subject," we are sometimes heard 
to remark. But the question is not How long are we going? 
but How far do we go? Some of us will wander and lose our 
way in the undergrowth of thought, despite all admonitions 
and remedies. But those who resolutely set themselves to 
correct this nerveless and debilitated habit of mind in the 
treatment of a subject may do so by, first, knowing whence 
they start, secondly, foreseeing the end which they mean to 
reach, and thirdly, noting the way-marks along the path of 
their thought. Divide and conquer. 

The use of divisions has been objected to on various 
grounds. 



276 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

i. That "it originated with the schoolmen." But it were 
a pity if those pious and cogitative recluses, the thinkers of 
their age, should not have transmitted to succeeding genera- 
tions something worthy of acceptance. And so they did. Is 
it to be supposed, for example, that an intellect like that of 
Thomas Aquinas, entitled to be named with Pascal's or New- 
ton's, and having a pious heart and a steady will behind it, 
should labor for years, even in a dark and bigoted age, to no 
purpose? We should be doing the schoolmen no small in- 
justice to suppose their thoughts altogether occupied with 
such problems as the number of spirits that can dance together 
without inconvenience on the tip of a pen ; or whether an 
angel in passing from one point to another in space is com- 
pelled, like a mortal, to pass all the intermediate points; or 
why it is that plants cannot grow in the fire ; or the exact 
difference between efficacious and sufficient grace. There is 
little danger of our imitating their dreary attempts to exhaust 
the subject in hand, with their endless " quiddities " and 
" ampliations," divisions and subdivisions, — as did John Howe 
and Dr. John Owen and other great divines of the seventeenth 
century. But we may without hesitation follow in our own 
way a method which they were perhaps the first to use, and 
of which they were undoubtedly the greatest abusers. 

2. That " it interrupts the flow of thought." " Let me 
go," says the objector, " where my thoughts would carry me, 
in the composition of a sermon." Certainly ; but which of 
your thoughts? Have you none that are feebler than others ? 
none that are irrelevant ? none that are unfit to be trusted in 
the highest places ? The interminable story-teller goes where 
his thoughts carry him ; not one of the thousand immaterial 
circumstances he narrates but arises in his consciousness under 
some law of association ; none the less, however, does his hearer 
receive the sympathy of all reasonable persons. Give yourself 
up, in preparation for the pulpit, to the guidance of your best 
thoughts, the strongest, highest, most pertinent; and they 



THE DIVISIONS— PRINCIPLE, DISCOVERY 211 

will probably constitute the plan of your sermon. Verily, no 
part of this whole process is unnatural or lacking in spon- 
taneity ; unless, indeed, the preacher should insist that his 
sermon shall wear its skeleton, like a crustacean, a low-grade 
creature, on the outside. 

3. That "it is unfavorable to unity of discourse." Now, 
if instead of this it were said that there is danger to unity in 
the use of divisions, the objection might be admitted ; though 
it could probably be shown that the rejection of divisions is 
at least equally liable to the same danger. 

In textual preaching, for example, when the unity of the text is 
not recognized, each division may be discussed independently 
of the rest ; and thus we may have two or three sermonettes 
placed side by side, with no one supreme idea controlling 
them all. We may preach three ten-minute sermons from 
Acts xvi. 25 (" But about midnight Paul and Silas were pray- 
ing and singing hymns unto God, and the prisoners were 
listening to them "), on " Prayer," " Praise," and " Christian 
Influence " respectively, and call them one sermon. But the 
man who should do this would be likely to discourse very ex- 
cursively without divisions. On the other hand, the preacher 
who keeps steadily to his one line of thought, the development 
of his one specific theme, without divisions, may be safely 
trusted, in the use of them, to perceive and honor the unity 
of his text, — to find, for instance, in Acts xvi. 25, a noble 
illustration of " Spiritual Liberty," and to treat prayer, praise, 
and the exertion of Christian influence as expressions of this 
state of the soul. The Christian may pray, and praise, and do 
good, anywhere and in any outward condition: these would be 
his divisions. 

The subject must be one ; the divisions are the well-ordered 
interpretation of the subject : how then can they prove 
inimical to unity of discourse? 

4. That " it will restrain passion, and hence is not orator- 
ical." Indeed, it will smother it to death, if carried to the 



278 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ridiculous extreme that has sometimes been practised. I 
have in mind such " textual gymnasts " as Dr. Joseph Parker 
has wittily caricatured in "Ad Clerum " : " Some preachers 
are outline mad; they are nothing but outline; they plan 
beautifully, but build nothing. Give them the word thinking 
as a text, and they will see in it: (i) Man in a reduced physi- 
cal state — thin; (2) Man in a high social state — king; (3) Man 
in a truly intellectual state — thinking." So will an accom- 
plished word-inquisitor stretch a very good Scripture word on 
the rack, and torment it with etymological pulleys and screws, 
till it is fain to yield up secrets which it never did possess. 
He may be sure, however, that, whatever skill he may acquire 
by such procedures, they will leave him more and more heart- 
less. 

But why should genuine sunlight play the antagonist to 
heat, and endeavor to drive it off the field of action? On the 
contrary, do they not love to blend their forces and march on 
together? 

True, there are certain ebullitions of feeling which a recog- 
nized order of discourse, however simple and natural, will tend 
to restrain, — mere wild outbursts of unmeaning emotion, sen- 
timent degenerating into sentimentality and pathos into 
whining, — such as seem to have marked the disorders of the 
Corinthian church, and of some Methodist meetings. But if 
this be so, great is the gain of it, rational, spiritual, oratorical. 
For, if this volume of fervid feeling were kept in line with the 
truth and delivered upon the hearer's will, even though some 
of it should be sacrificed in the process, the loss would be 
more than counterbalanced by the precious gain. Two narrow 
ribbons of iron, parallel, five feet apart, carefully laid upon solid 
wooden ties, — see them extending from city to city and from 
ocean to ocean, through all the land. What good can they do ? 
Not one inch has ever a train of cars been moved by them. 
So far from creating energy, they are consumers of it. Never- 
theless, we have not yet discovered a method of safe and rapid 



THE DIVISIONS— PRINCIPLE, DISCOVERY 279 

locomotion without them. They keep the train in its path, 
and, with some curves and windings and some gentle ups and 
downs, conduct it by the shortest practicable route to its des- 
tination. The outline of your sermon may have a somewhat 
rigid and mechanical look; but though it do nothing more — 
and it will do much more — it may keep the energy of thought 
and feeling from running to waste. It will facilitate movement, 
and will guarantee that movement shall be progress. 

The use of divisions is oratorical ; whereas the excursive and 
literary structure of the pulpit essay or meditation is not. For 
oratory is persuasion through conviction ; and conviction is 
by explanations and proofs well discriminated and well ordered. 
The steady and straightforward tread of discussion from point 
to point is distinctively an oratorical method. 

In brief, you will find that every objection to the use of di- 
visions is invalid, except as use is confounded with abuse ; and 
that the objection serves only to lift into clearer light the great 
and universal principle of order upon which they rest. 

I am not yet ready to drop this part of our subject. I 
would persuade you to make another experiment. Select some 
sermon in which the succession of ideas is concealed rather 
than distinctly marked ; analyze it carefully ; then, should this 
analysis show that no regular course of thought is observed in 
the sermon, or, if observed, that it has not been made appa- 
rent even to the interested hearer, consider with an unpreju- 
diced mind whether either of these features shall be regarded 
as a defect. To illustrate : take Phillips Brooks's sermon on 
"The Joy of Self-sacrifice." We shall probably find, after 
reading it, that the subject and the introduction remain clear 
and distinct in our minds ; but not the discussion. Examin- 
ing this, then, more closely, we discover the following plan : 

(a) By many this is regarded as impossible. 
(l>) Nevertheless it is possible. 

(c) It solves the problem of happy lives. 

(d) It gives power to do our work more perfectly. 



280 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Should we not have been better pleased, however, if these 
thoughts had been shown, in their relations to each other, 
somewhat more plainly? Indeed, I would venture to suggest 
that the first two seem to prove the possibility, and the latter 
two the value of joy in self-sacrifice ; and that, if the subject 
had been presented in this form, it would have lost nothing, 
and would have gained in clearness, force, and permanence 
of impression. In other words, comparing two highly gifted 
preachers of the same faith and spirit, I should take Frederick 
Robertson to be a better sermonizer than Phillips Brooks. 

Now I have chosen for this example a striking and noble 
discourse : a sermon of poor quality could, of course, much 
less afford to be lacking in distinctness. But I think we must 
regard the essay-sermon, whatever high qualities it may possess, 
as an unfinished production, — only in a state of becoming what 
its true nature urges it to be. However perfect in its kind, 
it is not of the most perfect kind. 

It does not follow, however, that we should be unwilling to 
preach till we have thought a subject through, and are pre- 
pared to express it in the best-defined form. Be urgent in 
season, out of season ; proclaim the Word ; remember how 
much larger a work is preaching the Gospel than delivering 
sermons, elaborate or otherwise. The large-souled preacher 
from whom our last example was taken has said, in reply to 
the complaint of some ministers that it is impossible to pro- 
duce two sermons a week : " It is impossible, if by a sermon 
you mean a finished oration. It is as impossible to produce 
that twice as it is undesirable to produce it once a week. But 
that a man who lives with God, whose delight is in the study 
of God's words in the Bible, in the world, in history, in human 
nature, who is thinking about Christ, and man, and salvation 
every day, that he should not be able to talk about these things 
of his heart, seriously, lovingly, thoughtfully, simply, for two 
half-hours every week, is inconceivable, and I do not believe 
it. Cast off the haunting incubus of the notion of great ser- 



THE DIVISIONS-PRINCIPLE, DISCOVERY 281 

mons. Care not for your sermon, but for your truth, and for 
your people ; and subjects will spring up on every side of you, 
and the chances to preach on them will be all too few." 

That is a true Christian testimony, and you cannot let it 
sink too deep into your memories and your hearts. But the 
question before us now is, What shall be the ideal excellence 
toward which we look in the production of sermons? And 
one feature of this excellence is, not indeed that the sermon 
should ever be what would be characterized as " a finished 
oration," but that its movement from beginning to end shall 
be both orderly and apparent. There is a place for intellectual 
as well as for physical invertebrates ; but it is in vain that they 
deny the superior claims of the great back-boned family. 

II. The Discovery and Invention of Divisions. 

Choice must be made between two methods of division, the 
textual and the topical. Which shall be preferred in any 
particular case will be determined by the proposed form and 
contents of the sermon. If the textual method be chosen, the 
work is not one of invention, but of 

i. Discovery. We have to ascertain and disengage the 
leading thoughts of the text. As in the case of the proposi- 
tion, it is a matter of interpretation. We must understand the 
passage, enter into its innermost spirit and life, and then set 
forth its truths in their order and unity. It is an analytic 
process, resulting in a series of interpretative statements. 

I would offer you this guiding principle : Textual divisions 
are designed to make the congregation sensible of the meaning, 
spirit, and aim of the text. Is this a truism? If so, it greatly 
needs to be reiterated ; for the disregard of it is extremely 
prevalent. Many preachers seem to assume that any great 
idea or truth fairly implied in any word of the text, considered 
separately and apart from all the rest, may serve as a division, 
if one be pleased to employ it as such. This mistaken as- 
sumption appears in such forms as— we shall see in the next 
lecture. 



LECTURE XV 

THE DIVISIONS — DISCOVERY, INVENTION 

HOW is it that a textual division sometimes fails to unfold 
the true life of the text? The failure may occur in va- 
rious ways : 

i . Making unreal distinctions between different parts of the 
text. When a writer uses synonymous words or equivalent 
expressions, it is not two separate ideas that he presents, but 
one only. Such words and expressions are frequently met with 
in Scripture ; and exposition must not separate ideas, however 
different in form, that are one in substance. 

The Hebrew parallelisms in the poetry of the Old Testa- 
ment are familiar examples. Take the first verse of the 
Thirty-second Psalm : " Blessed is he whose transgression is 
forgiven, whose sin is covered." We are not to suppose that 
here are given two elements of blessedness ; and accordingly 
consider, first, the forgiveness of transgression, and, secondly, 
the covering of sin. The latter member of the verse is the 
former member repeated in figurative language. 

Or take, as an example, Isaiah xl. 31 : " But they that wait 
upon the Lord shall renew," etc. Maclaren, in one of his 
sermons, finds here the promise of " three forms of unwearied 
strength,— . . . strength to soar, strength to run, strength to 
walk." By the first is meant the " power of bringing all hea- 
ven into our grasp " ; by the second, " power for all the great 
crises of our lives, which call for special, though it may be 
282 



THE DIVISIONS-DISCOVERY, INVENTION 283 

brief, exertion"; by the third, "patient power for persistent 
pursuit of weary, monotonous duty." Can we think that these 
three distinct forms of Christian activity, or any other three, 
can be found in the varied imagery of such a passage? Why 
not be content with the prophet's threefold expression of the 
one joyful and inspiring thought of immortal strength? In 
like manner, when the apostle James exhorts : " And let pa- 
tience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, 
lacking in nothing" (James i. 4),— are we to suppose that the 
word perfect represents a certain quality of Christian character, 
entire another, and lacking in nothing still another? It is simply 
the not uncommon case of a redundant expression employed 
for the sake of emphasis. 

2. Making the distinction too prominent between certain simi- 
lar parts of the text. Every difference is not strongly enough 
marked to serve as the basis of a division. E.g., it would be 
foreign to the spirit of the Apostle's exhortation in 1 Corin- 
thians xv. 58 ("Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stead- 
fast, unmovable "), to discuss, first, steadfastness, and, secondly, 
unmovableness ; because unmovableness is only a greater 
degree of Christian steadfastness. The thought is one, — stead- 
fast even to immovability. So, in Psalm cxxxix. 14 ("I will 

give thanks unto Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully 
made "), we should promote confusion rather than order and 
unity by declaring, first, that we are fearfully, and, secondly, 
that we are wonderfully, made. The two ideas are too nearly 
akin to admit of such treatment. Another example : Text, 
Galatians vi. 14; divisions, We glory in the Cross because by 
the Cross (1) The world is crucified unto us, and (2) We are 
crucified unto the world. 

3. Taking as divisions two or mote variant interpretations 
of the text. E.g., the word of God to Cain, " And if thou 
doest not well, sin coucheth at the door," has been supposed 
by commentators to mean, either sin is the cause of the not doing 
well, or the not doing well is itself sin, or a sin-offering is at 



284 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

hand. All these are great and significant truths. But to take 
them as the divisions of a sermon on this text would be to 
build the discourse on a conjectural interpretation, two thirds 
of which must necessarily be false. Yet even this method is 
sometimes employed. I once heard a sermon on the words, 
" Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? " (Acts 
xix. 2), in which the preacher stated that, according to some 
authorities, the proper rendering is, " Did ye receive the Holy 
Ghost when ye believed?" But as both these translations 
bring out important truths, he would ask our attention, first, to 
the gift of the Holy Spirit at the time of conversion, and, sec- 
ondly, to the gift of the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion. 
He should have felt under obligation to determine for himself 
the true interpretation (no difficult matter in this case), and 
to preach that only ; or else have let the text alone. 

4. Ascribing fanciful meanings to certain parts or the whole 
of the text. To write into a passage what we then proceed to 
read out of it is to do worse than nothing toward its true 
explanation. And if these personal fancies are made con- 
spicuous as divisions of a sermon, they become the more 
misleading and hurtful. 

What have not the sayings of our Lord suffered at the hands 
of exegetical dreamers ! Even the sober and scholarly Trench 
suggests that, in the parable of the leaven, it is " a woman " 
that is said to hide the leaven in the meal, because the church 
" evidently would be most fitly represented under this image." 
" So again," he continues, " why should three measures of meal 
be mentioned? It may perhaps be sufficiently answered, ' Be- 
cause it was just so much as at one time would be commonly 
mixed' (Gen. xviii. 6; Judges vi. 19; 1 Sam. i. 24). Yet it 
may be that we should attach a further significance to this 
number three. Some perceive in it the spread of the Gospel 
through the three parts of the then known world ; others again, 
as Augustine, to the ultimate leavening of the whole human 
race, derived from the three sons of Noah, which is nearly the 



THE DIVISIONS-DISCOVERY, INVENTION 285 

same thing. And those who, like Jerome and Ambrose, find 
in it a pledge of the sanctification of spirit, soul, and body 
are not upon a different track ; if, indeed, as has not been ill 
suggested, Shem, Japheth, and Ham do indeed answer to these 
three elements, spirit, soul, and body, which together make 
up the man, — the one or other element coming into predomi- 
nance in the descendants severally of the three. But leaving 
this "— Yes, one such exposition is certainly one too many ; 
and so, " leaving this," let us quit forever this fairy-footed trip- 
ping over the deep and reasonable truths of holy Scripture. 

5. Opening and elaborating the meaning of certain words of 
the text, out of all prof ortion to their significance as used by the 
author. Now words, though the best symbols of thought that 
we have, are sadly imperfect. Their very vastness and variety 
of meaning involve practical imperfections. Not only do they 
often but "half reveal the thought within," but often they 
suggest some widely different thought. When two persons 
use the same word it does not follow that they mean the same 
thing; nor, indeed, when the same person uses the same 
word on two different occasions. Who is conscious, in the 
act of utterance, of all the meaning of his words separately 
and individually considered? It is only that part of the 
meaning which is germane to our present purpose that we 
intend to express. And it is the business of the interpreting 
mind of the hearer or reader to know what that meaning is. 

Take, e.g., some word in every-day use,— such as tree. 
It includes, as to its logical " extension," all the trees, big and 
little, upon earth. Besides, it includes all the essential parts 
and properties of a tree,— root, trunk, branches, leaves, the 
power of elaborating and circulating sap, etc. But who has 
all this in mind in using the word? Not even Linnaeus or 
Professor Asa Gray. 

Or take the word me as an example. It is a still more 
richly freighted word. It represents the human personality, 
the self, the one supernatural being in the worldj living and 



286 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

acting in the moral realm, accountable, immortal. But what 
philosopher even is consciously aware of all this, and of all 
the rest of the word's contents, when in ordinary conversation 
he speaks of himself? 

Or, again, the word mother, the symbol of the most un- 
selfish and beautiful relation of our earthly life, laden with all 
tender and hallowed associations,— how often, in uttering it, 
do we put upon such a word all that it is able to bear ? 

Supposing, now, we should hear some little child say, 
" Mother, let me go out and play under the tree," and should 
undertake to give a rational and impressive explanation of 
these words, it would hardly be done on this wise : " We find 
in this request three things worthy of consideration ; first, a 
relationship than which earth has nothing more beautiful and 
dear, — mother; secondly, the identical, enduring self, — me; 
and thirdly, the most prominent and important class of objects 
in the vegetable kingdom,— /m\" Simply because, while the 
words mean all we have claimed for them and immeasurably 
more, the child did not mean this by them. 

Similarly in explaining a sentence in a book (other than the 
Bible) we do not carve it up mechanically, and dilate upon 
each word's separate wealth of meaning. To do this would 
be to treat it, not as a sentence, but as unrelated words which, 
for some reason or without reason, have been placed side by 
side. 

Nevertheless, many of us claim the liberty of expounding 
the Scriptures very much after this manner, in the divisions of 
our sermons. Take as an example an often-preached text — 
"No man careth for my soul" (Ps. cxlii. 4)— with these di- 
visions : first, The most precious of all objects of human care 
is the soul ; secondly, The obligation is upon us to care for 
the souls of others as well as our own ; thirdly, The neglect 
of this spiritual care is shamefully prevalent, even among those 
who acknowledge the obligation. Very true and worthy of 
earnest consideration are all these propositions ; but what the 



THE DIVISIONS-DISCOVERY, INVENTION 287 

Psalmist meant by his pathetic complaint was merely that his 
friends had forsaken him, and no one cared whether he lived 
or died. 

Another occasion, very tempting to some preachers, for this 
straining and forcing of the text, is the interpretation of meta- 
phors. Good examples may be found in Macmillan's " Bible 
Teachings in Nature." In his exposition of Isaiah lxiv. 6, 
" We all do fade as a leaf," he says : " Let us trace out this 
analogy, and see what light the picture of nature sheds on the 
Bible, (i) Leaves fade gradually. ... (2) Leaves fade si- 
lently. ... (3) Leaves fade differently. ... (4) Leaves fade 
characteristically. . . . (5) Leaves fade preparedly. . . ." In 
Isaiah liv. 1 2, " And I will make thy windows of agate," he 
finds "windows of faith, windows oi feeling, and windows of 
spiritual character." These ideas, however excellent in them- 
selves, and however elegantly expanded by their author, repre- 
sent what the prophet's figures might be made to mean, rather 
than what they do mean. 

A more common form of this exorbitant development may 
be seen in such examples as the following. In the text, " The 
counsel of the Lord standeth sure, the thoughts of His heart 
to all generations" (Ps. xxxiii. n), Richard Watson calls at- 
tention to, " first, the divine counsels generally, and, secondly, 
the particular view of them which the text contains." Here 
the first division is augmentative and divergent, instead of truly 
interpretative. " The particular view which the text contains " 
is the one view with which the homiletic analysis of it is con- 
cerned. Why insist on treating a topical passage textually? 
No sort of cleavage can change a Lombardy poplar or a pal. 
metto into an oak : the branches into which it is split will be 
dead. Saurin's division of the text, " Godliness is profitable," 
etc. (1 Tim. iv. 8), are, "first, What is godliness? and, sec- 
ondly, What are its advantages? The first division is devel- 
oped by four subdivisions : (a) Godliness supposes knowledge 
in the mind, (b) It must be sincere, (c) It supposes sacrifice, (d) 



288 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

It is characterized by zeal and fervor." But surely there are 
not these two great subjects in this verse, — the nature and the 
advantages of godliness. The latter is the subject. On the 
former nothing is called for, unless it be a few prefatory 
words. 

Dr. Phelps quotes with approbation the following divisions 
of the text, " Men ought always to pray, and not to faint " 
(Luke xviii. i): "(i) The text commands a duty which a 
modern philosopher has pronounced 'the most stupendous 
act' of which man is capable, — ' to pray. , (2) The text en- 
forces the duty of prayer by appeal to the supreme faculty of 
our nature, — ' Men ought to pray.' (3) The text suggests that, 
so far as we know, no other order of being exists, to which 
prayer is a duty so imperative as to man. (4) The text implies 
that success in prayer depends on that state of mind which 
insures its constancy, — ' Men ought always to pray.' (5) The 
text teaches that prayer is an act of courage in times of ex- 
treme emergency, — 'Men ought always to pray, and not to 
faint? " " Does not this plan illustrate," he asks, "how hack- 
neyed texts may be freshened, and how biblical authority may 
be given to a suggestive train of thought, by the mere sense 
of fullness in the discussion, produced by a textual division 
elaborated and formally stated? " I should be compelled to 
answer that it does not. It rather shows how divisions may 
be so overdone as to defeat their own object, and become an 
element of weakness and a means of the dispersion of thought. 

It is here that the old scholastic method of dividing texts 
according to subject, predicate, and copula belongs, — as an 
example or two will show. Take these from Dr. Robert South : 
Text, "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. vi. 23); divisions, 

(1) What sin is, (2) What is comprised in death, (3) In 
what respect death is properly called the wages of sin. Text, 
Matthew v. 8; divisions, (1) What it is to be pure in heart, 

(2) What it is to see God, (3) How this purity of heart fits 
and qualifies the soul for the sight of God. Traces of this 



THE DIVISIONS— DISCOVERY, INVENTION 289 

method, once widely prevalent, may be found in Wesley's 
sermons. In the sermon on "The Scripture Way of Salva- 
tion," from Ephesians ii. 8, "Ye are saved through faith," he 
proposes to inquire, "first, What is salvation? Secondly, 
What is that faith whereby we are saved? Thirdly, How are 
we saved by it? " 

It must be conceded that to plan a discourse from the 
standpoint of the grammatical structure of the text is ex- 
tremely easy. Any one may soon learn to apply the method 
to hundreds of passages with the greatest facility. Also, that 
the plan it produces is dry, mechanical, disproportionate, 
divergent, and diffusive is equally plain. For in texts of this 
class the treatment required by subject and predicate — if any 
at all be required — is merely that of preliminary explanation. 
The copula is the heart of the text ; and to unfold that should 
be the leading idea and aim of the discourse. In other words, 
the third division in the examples I have just quoted is more 
properly the main proposition. The other two are of the 
nature of introduction; and the texts are most suitable for 
topical treatment. 

Let George Herbert, with his fine poetic sense of unity and 
his finer spiritual sense, tell us what kind of sermonizing he 
has found good unto edifying : 

" The parson's method in handling of a text consists of two 
parts : first, a plain and evident declaration of the meaning of 
the text ; and, secondly, some choice observations drawn out 
of the whole text as it lies entire and unbroken in the Scripture 
itself. This he thinks natural and sweet and grave. Whereas 
the other way, of crumbling the text into small parts, as the 
person speaking or spoken to, the subject and object, and 
the like, hath neither in it sweetness, nor gravity, nor variety, 
since the words apart are not Scripture, but a dictionary, and 
may be considered alike in all the Scripture." 

Now the faults of which I have spoken are, one and all, 
violations of the principle of unity. They put asunder and 



290 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

keep apart that which is vitally grown together. Vinet re- 
minds us that we are " to respect the life of the text, to develop 
rather than to decompose it." I fear we often kill our texts in 
the effort to make their life manifest. They die on our an- 
atomical hands. If we knew and felt them as we might, it 
would be impossible to perpetrate such vivisection. How 
could we take some great and urgent utterance of prophet or 
apostle, or of Him whose words, above all others, " are spirit 
and life," and, instead of setting it forth, to the best of our 
ability, in its intense unity and power, suffer ourselves to be 
carried away by a counterfeit logical spirit, so as to cut asunder 
that whose very life is in its oneness? " First, secondly, 
thirdly, fourthly " — if we will ; but let them be the sympathetic 
development of the text, not its decomposition. 

So much, then, for the discovery and statement of what is 
actually in the text. Supposing now that we choose to preach 
topically, we must get our divisions through some process of 

2. Invention. For we have now left the text, and are deal- 
ing only with the theme it has furnished. A word, a phrase, 
or at best one short sentence — our proposition — lies before us. 
Unlike many texts, perhaps it does not offer a single subordi- 
nate topic. Here, then, is needed not only the analytic fac- 
ulty, but more especially the creative imagination. Insight is 
still necessary, but not sufficient. We must use the finding- 
glass of our intellectual telescope. It is original work in a high 
degree, and cannot be done by rule and measure. Neverthe- 
less, there are guiding principles by which one might be helped 
even in the construction of an original machine ; much more 
in the construction of a discourse, which is not nearly so 
difficult. 

I will make three suggestions : 

( i ) Let the invention of divisions and of materials go on to- 
gether. One thing at a time is a good rule, but not universally 
applicable. Sometimes we do each of two things better for 
doing them simultaneously. Thinking is not public speaking, 
yet the orator does some of his best thinking on his feet ; and 



THE DIVISIONS-DISCOVERY, INVENTION 291 

no one will deny that, on the other hand, the thinking may 
help the speaking. So here ; while seeking divisions, you will 
find some of your best materials, and conversely. In fact, are 
not the divisions themselves the most important part of your 
materials? 

Detain and cherish any ideas arising in your mind that 
seem to be related in any vital way to your theme. If the 
right arrangement of them fail for a time to appear, do not be 
disturbed. Gather materials. Glimpses of order, and then 
luminous lines of thought will soon begin to gleam through the 
darkness. Or, if this kind of " wisdom lingers," while " know- 
ledge comes " in abundance, then set yourself deliberately to 
turning your little chaos into a fair and ordered sphere. This 
will not be hard to do if you are sternly willing to cast aside 
all unsuitable matter. The spontaneous action of the mind 
will help your intention ; for it is of the nature of mind to love 
and create order. Matter and law, materials and divisions, 
are allies bound to support each other. From the very first 
encourage them to go together. 

The testimony of Dr. James W. Alexander, in one of his 
" Thoughts " on sermon-making, is suggestive : " I follow a 
brief penned at my table during a short interval. I made it 
thus: mere catchwords— took a general thought to start with, 
let the next come of itself, then the next, and so on without 
effort. It served well. The thing to be noted is, that in a 
few moments, by letting the mind flow, and not interfering with 
the flow, one may jot down materials for a long discourse. 
It was not merely heads : these are barren, they are discon- 
nected ; it was concatenation, it was genesis." 

(2) Choose your point of view. There are many ways of 
looking at any object. What we see of it will depend not 
only on our eyesight, but equally on our standpoint. A 
visitor passes through the buildings of a woolen manufactory. 
What has he observed? If he be a machinist, the machinery ; 
if a manufacturer, the cloth ; if a philanthropist, the appearance 
of the operatives. No two persons looking upon the same 



292 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

scene note just the same things ; because the mind of each 
approaches it from a different direction. So, likewise, with 
the contemplation of a truth. Give the same text and theme 
to two preachers : how different, in all probability, the two 
treatments ! But this will also be true of any one preacher on 
different occasions. He will see this or that in his theme, 
according to his mental condition and the object which he 
has in view at the time. Therefore fix upon your point of 
view (what the logician would call your "principle of divi- 
sion "), and look at the subject from that direction. 

Shall I mention some of these principles of divisions, with 
illustrative examples? 

i . Characteristics. 

Example : " Christ's Revelation of the Father " (John 
xiv. 8, 9). Shows us how God regards 

1. Our every-day life. 

2. Our troubles and sorrows. 

3. Our sins. 

4. Our future. 

2. Aspects or Relations. 

Example: "The Grace of Contentment" (Phil. iv. 11). 

1. As opposed to a regretful lingering over the past. 

2. As opposed to an anxious looking forth into the future. 

3. Points of Comparison. 

Example : " In what Respects are the Works of Christian 
Believers Greater than the Works of Christ in His 
Personal Ministry? " (John xiv. 12). 

1. In convincing and converting power. 

2. In the development of Christian character. 

3. In the diffusion of Christianity. 

Bishop Granbery. 

4. Principles of Conduct. 

Example : " The Use of Money " (Luke xvi. 9). 

1. Gain all you can. 

2. Save all you can. 

3. Give all you can. 

Wesley. 



THE DIVISIONS-DISCOVERY, INVENTION 293 

5. Sources. 

Example : " The Dangers of Contempt " (Matt, xviii. 10). 
The sources of contempt are : 

1. Want of knowledge. 

2. Want of wisdom. 

3. Want of reverence. 

Bishop W. Boyd Carpenter. 

6. Applications. 

Example: "The Highest Help Only can Satisfy our 
Needs" (Ps. cxxi. 1). 

1. In temptation. 

2. In sorrow. 

3. In doubt. 

4. In sin. 

Phillips Brooks. 

7. Observations. 

Example : " The Importance of Living to God on Com- 
mon Occasions and in Small Things" (Luke xvi. 10). 

1. We know very little about the real importance of 
events and duties. 

2. Even as the world judges, small things constitute about 
the whole of life. 

3. God is observant of small things. 

4. All efficient men, when they have been men of com- 
prehension, have also been men of detail. 

5. There is more real piety in adorning one small than 
one great occasion. 

BUSHNELL. 

8. Motives. 

Example: "The Public Confession of Faith in Christ" 
(Acts ii. 41). 

1. It commits the young Christian in the presence of his 
fellow-men to the service of Chirst. 

2. It increases his unconscious good influence. 

3. It brings him into church associations. 

4. It proclaims Christ the Saviour to the world. 

9. Explanatory Statements. 

Example : " The Good Man's Satisfaction " (Prov. xiv. 
14). Personal goodness solves the problem of 



294 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

i. Safety. 

2. Happiness. 

3. Greatness. 

4. Helpfulness. 

10. Explanatory Reasons. 

Example : " Why should the Pulpit Set Itself against In- 
temperance? " (Ezek. xxxiii. 6). 

1. Because of the unnumbered and incomputable evils 
that flow from it. 

2. Because it is one of the hugest obstacles in the way 
of the Gospel. 

3. Because it is God's order that the church should take 
the lead in every great moral reform. 

Bishop C. D. Foss. 

11. Proofs. 

Example : " Obligation to God a Privilege " (Ps. cxix. 54). 

1. Without the sense of obligation there could be no such 
thing as criminal law. 

2. There could be no society. 

3. It is virtually the throne of God in the soul. 

4. It ennobles personal liberty. 

5. It is a source of joy. 

6. It sets a man in immediate relation to God. 

7. It is proven to be a privilege by personal testimony. 

BUSHNELL. 

12. Positions to be Refuted. 

Example: "Popular Excuses for Sin" (Gen. hi. 12, 13). 

1. No harm in it. 

2. Others do it. 

3. I must live. 

4. My motive is good. 

13. Inferences. 

Example: "Our Life the Gift of God" (Job x. 12). 
Therefore we are under obligation 

1. Not needlessly to damage or shorten it. 

2. Not to spend it in antagonism to the divine love and 
will. 

3. But to use it in God's name. 



THE DIVISIONS-DISCOVERY, INVENTION 205 

4. And to yield it up humbly and willingly at His com- 
mand. 

Note also that sometimes you will see fit to apply more than 
one principle of division in the same sermon. An example 
or two — in which for the sake of greater distinctness I will 
give subdivisions — may suffice. 

1. Observations and Proofs. 

Example : " The Power of Unconscious Influence " (John 
xx. 8). 

1. Some general views of the subject. 

(1) A mistake to suppose this influence insignificant 
because unobtrusive. 

(2) There are two modes of self-expression and influ- 
ence, the conscious and the unconscious. 

2. Proofs of the power of unconscious influence. 

(1) The instinctive imitation of children. 

(2) The respect for others which takes the place of this 
instinctive imitation in later life. 

(3) The most active feelings and impulses are conta- 
gious. 

(4) No reason to believe spiritual influence an exception. 

(5) Much of what is ordinarily supposed to be direct 
influence really indirect. 

BUSHNELL. 

2. Classes and Explanatory Reasons. 

Example : " The Folly of Trusting our Own Heart " 
(Prov. xxviii. 26). 

1. A few classes of men who trust their own heart. 

(1) The young. 

(2) Those who look into their own hearts for their God. 

(3) Those who suffer their feelings to decide their doc- 
trines. 

(4) Those who substitute feelings for duties. 

(5) Those who depend upon their own hearts for a 
supply of strength to resist temptation or to support 
in trouble. 

2. Some reasons for the assertion of the text. 

(1) Because he trusts to what he knows is unworthy. 

(2) And what he knows is wicked. 

Deems. 



296 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

3. Principle and Objections. 

Example : " Foreign Missions " (John xiv. 6). 

1. The principle. 

2. Objections to be noticed. 

( 1 ) Christianity is great enough to be trusted to recom- 
mend itself. 

(2) Missions should begin at home. 

(3) The average missionary is dull and uninteresting. 

(4) We best do our duty to heathen lands by conferring 
on them the blessings of civilization. 

Liddon. 

4. Fact and Meaning. 

Example: "The Illusiveness of Life" (Heb. xi. 8-10). 

1. The deceptiveness of life's promise. 

(1) Our senses deceive us. 

(2) Our natural anticipations deceive us. 

(3) Our expectations, resting on revelation, deceive us. 

2. The meaning of this deception. 

(1) It serves to lure us on. 

(2) It fulfils the promise in a deeper way. 

F. W. Robertson. 

Now these are some of the more common and significant 
lines of treatment. Seek out others for yourself. It may be 
done with no great difficulty by the analysis of sermons. Do 
not rest content with less than an easy familiarity with the 
ways in which the best preachers have found it expedient to 
treat their subjects. Know the points of view that may be 
taken. Then, in your own case, you may expect some suit- 
able principle of division to offer itself with the occasion for 
its use. 

(3) But above all, as in evolving the proposition from the 
text, so here, concentrate attention upon your theme. Deal with 
it as steadily and patiently as if it were a problem in mathe- 
matics. The mathematician knows that he can make no 
progress whatever with a wandering mind. He must attend. 
Learn the secret of his success ; and yours will be as sure as 
his. Ill-defined objects will reveal their outlines ; the unseen 



THE DIVISIONS-DISCOVERY, INVENTION 29? 

will become visible. But there must be no self-deception or 
superficiality : you must quietly determine to explore the place. 
Even when compelled to relax attention somewhat, linger 
with faithful feet in the neighborhood. Do not cease from 
this simple and strenuous effort of thought till everything is 
plain before you. 

Have we not all heard sermons whose plans were so just 
and striking, every way so admirable, that we were fain to ask 
by what happy art they were produced? But there is no 
mystery about it, save the inscrutable mystery that attends 
upon every movement of thought, as upon all simple things. 
There is no other art in finding and following thought-lines 
than that which is employed in tracing out the rude figure of 
a bird, or deer, or human face which may sometimes be dis- 
cerned on the side of a weather-beaten precipice. You have 
only to keep looking. " But do not these happy plans some- 
times just come to a preacher? " No doubt ; in rare instances 
they are given in dreams ; but it is through some sort of reac- 
tion in a thoughtful, meditative mind. They do not come to 
the indolent and inattentive. 

A brilliant psychological writer has asked: "Why do we 
spend years straining after a certain scientific or practical 
problem, but all in vain, — our thought unable to evoke the 
solution we desire? And why, some day, walking in the street 
with our attention miles away from that quest, does the answer 
saunter into our minds as carelessly as if it had never been 
called for,— suggested possibly by the flowers on the bonnet of 
the lady in front of us, or possibly by nothing that we can 
discover? " We may not be able to tell why this is so ; but 
we may be sure that the prolonged effort to reach the solution 
had much more to do with producing the result than the acci- 
dental " flowers " or other circumstance. 

Living in the preaching spirit, you will be delighted to ex- 
perience some very fruitful spontaneous action of the mind. 
Texts, themes, plans, materials, quickening ideas, will fre- 



298 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

quently, at any odd hour, come flitting into your mind — and 
out again, unless you detain them. They are specially likely 
to come after preaching, Sunday night or Monday. By all 
means bid them welcome. Take out your note-book and 
write them down. Then, at the proper time, let them be 
developed into sermons. But I am not now speaking of these 
experiences. We are considering the case of the voluntary 
invention and arrangement of thought, — of thinking up and 
thinking out ideas. 

A loving attention, — that is the secret; and it is open to all 
who will learn it. Do your feet drag heavily, while you long 
for wings to soar withal? Are you coveting the gifts of 
genius? What if they were already offered you and have 
heretofore been refused? " Genius is a continued attention." 
" Genius is a protracted patience." " Genius is the faculty 
which begins by loving exceedingly and getting close through 
love to the noblest forms of life." " Genius is an infinite 
capacity for work, growing out of an infinite power of love." 
There is in you, even in you, this infinite possibility of love 
and labor. Use it now and always on your theme. 



LECTURE XVI 

DIVISIONS — REQUISITES, MINOR TOPICS 

YOU will not be sorry to learn that I shall finish the dis- 
cussion of divisions to-day. Two topics remain to en- 
gage our attention. 

III. Requisites of Divisions. 

Here, as everywhere, it is an element of power not to be 
easily satisfied. The soothing compromise, "That will do," 
should not be too complacently accepted. Be exacting in 
your requirements. Let not "the good become the enemy of 
the best." Nothing but your best will " do." The purposed 
result of our work is the highest conceivable, — "that we may 
present every man perfect in Christ Jesus " ; let the means and in- 
struments we employ, great and small, be as perfect as possible. 

Concerning the requisites of divisions, then, I would say : 

i. Let than be your own. Some preachers who would re- 
gard it highly objectionable to appropriate any other part of 
a sermon without acknowledgment, seem to look upon a good 
outline as common property. But the proposition and divi- 
sions are the very heart of the discourse ; the outline is the 
innermost line of thought. If this need not bear the marks of 
the preacher's individuality, why should any other part of his 
preaching ? 

Richard Cecil would not even consult a commentator till he 
had wrought out the body of his discourse. He says : " I will 
not foretell my own views by going first to commentators. I 
299 



300 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

talk the subject over to myself, I write down all that strikes 
me, and then I arrange what is written. After my plan is 
settled and my mind has exhausted its stores, then I would 
turn to some of my great doctors to see if I am in error ; but 
I find it necessary to reject many good things which the doc- 
tors say ; they will tell to no good effect in a sermon." 

It is easier, doubtless, to buy a series of ideas with one's 
money than to think it out with labor of brain and heart. I 
met with an opportunity not long since, in the second-hand 
department of a book-store ; the compilation was called " Five 
Hundred Sketches and Skeletons of Sermons, Suited to All 
Occasions, with Nearly One Hundred on Types and Meta- 
phors." It did not seem to be a piece of what De Quincey 
has so happily called " the literature of power." Very much 
better, probably, as well as bigger, is Simeon's " Horae Homi- 
leticse," which is published in twenty-one octavo volumes, and 
contains over twenty-five hundred "skeletons." But I will 
persistently hope that you may be too conscientious and intel- 
lectually high-minded to stoop to any such helps. What if 
you do have to spend a whole morning sometimes upon a 
theme that refuses to develop? Such a morning may be ex- 
tremely well spent. It may not make you a sermon, but it is 
making you; and in proportion as you become, good sermons 
will come in their season. It intensifies feeling, deepens in- 
sight, toughens the fiber of your mind, while the plagiarizing 
method debilitates and deludes. What if you are only a 
beginner? Begin to walk, or at least to crawl, alone. Cripples, 
not children, use crutches. Did you learn to write by substi- 
tuting some fair and regular copy for your own feeble scrawl? 
Study plans, in the sermons of able preachers, just as you 
would study anything else in other men's preaching,— for 
instruction and stimulus, not for transference to your own 
manuscript. Whatever their intrinsic excellence, they are not 
good when thus transferred, because not the expression of 
your own thinking and experience. 



DIVISIONS-REQUISITES, MINOR TOPICS 301 

"But did not the great Augustine advise that in pressing 
circumstances the preacher should use other men's discourses? 
Have we not now ' The Sermon Bible,' well recommended by- 
ministers in conspicuous places? And has not Mr. Spurgeon 
published more than one volume of ' My Sermon Notes,' in- 
tended, not as models and stimuli only, but also for bodily 
appropriation by those who 'can fill up a framework, but 
cannot construct one,' and for others in ' time of special 
pressure, bodily sickness, or mental weariness '? " Very well ; 
if such an offer is responded to by that which is highest in 
your nature, accept it gratefully and use its benefits with the 
utmost fidelity. Be sure, also, not to conceal the fact that 
only the "filling up" is your own; in other words, if you 
consent to be treated as a weakling, do not take the position 
of a falsifier. But I am slow to believe you are called to be 
that kind of preacher. Read much, think more, pray always 
in the Holy Spirit, and keep yourself in the love of God ; then 
let your sermons, in subject-matter and arrangement, and from 
plan all the way out to voice and gesture, be your own. So 
shall they possess, whatever their defects, the indispensable 
elements of reality and personality. "The sermon is the man 
preaching." 

Dr. Lovick Pierce, in his early ministry, uneducated and 
well-nigh penniless, got possession of " Simeon's Plans," which 
were very much used by the preachers with whom he asso- 
ciated ; and he tells us that the book was of great advantage 
to him : " The contempt I felt for the book and for myself, 
when I awoke to the littleness of employing another man's 
mind to do my thinking and planning, was an upward step in 
my mental pathway." 

2. Let them be divisions of the subject as announced, and not 
of some more general subject afloat in the mind. An example 
will suffice for explanation. In Dr. William M. Taylor's ser- 
mon on Zechariah xiv. 20 he interprets the text as "indicating 
that the great design and ultimate result of the diffusion of the 



302 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Gospel is to promote holiness" and he distinctly states, "This is 
the topic to the illustration of which I propose to devote the 
discourse of this morning." Then, after giving hardly more 
than a page to this topic, he proceeds : " Bearing in mind these 
principles, then, let us advance to the consideration of the 
subject which I have announced, and inquire, in the first place, 
what holiness is." His second division is, " How this holiness 
is to be obtained " ; and the third, " Where this holiness is to be 
manifested." Now turn back to the subject announced and 
see if these are divisions of it. On the contrary, the author 
has dismissed that subject with a few remarks, and taken up 
for discussion some such broader theme as " The True Chris- 
tian Holiness " ; and this, properly enough, is the title of the 
sermon. 

3. Let them be distinct from one another. We have here a 
rule of logical division,— of the separation of a class into its 
subclasses. Its violation results in what are called cross-divi- 
sions, with their inevitable confusion of thought. For example, 
should we attempt a classification of sermons themselves by 
dividing them into (1) textual, (2) topical, (3) revival sermons, 
our divisions would evidently communicate or cross, — class (3) 
being included in the other two. The very common classifi- 
cation of sermons as (1) textual, (2) topical, (3) expository, is 
another example of this error. 

In rhetoric the principle is the same, though somewhat more 
difficult of application. Taking as a text, e.g., Exodus xv. 
23-27, and drawing from it these lessons: (1) The troubles of 
God's children are attended with numerous blessings; (2) 
Nevertheless they are of such a nature as to make themselves 
severely felt; (3) But God has ways of making even these 
troubles sweet and wholesome to the soul ; (4) Then, after the 
troubles are over, there comes abundant rest and joy; (5) 
And in them all is seen the divine providence, — we should 
inevitably find, before reaching the last division, that we had 
already been discussing it. It is communicant with more than 



DIVISIONS— REQUISITES, MINOR TOPICS 303 

one of the others. Especially is the idea of God's making 
" our troubles sweet and wholesome to the soul " a part of the 
idea of " divine providence." In the following example, 
taken from one of Dr. Deems's sermons, the first division is 
inclusive of all the rest: "The Slavery of Sin: (i) The slave 
is deprived of the rights of freemen; (2) He has no choice of 
employment ; (3) He has no accumulation of property ; (4) He 
has no power to rise; (5) He is liable to be sent off at any 
time." 

Each division must be a step in advance, — none of them a 
bewildered circling about and recrossing of ground that has 
already been passed over. 

4. Let them be coordinate. Here again we have a rule of 
logic : the subclasses into which a genus is divided must be of 
the same rank or order. Trees, e.g., may be divided into 
deciduous trees and evergreens, but not into deciduous trees and 
cedars. 

In this matter also we find rhetoric more difficult than formal 
logic. But this only means a greater necessity for careful and 
discriminating thought. Take the following as an example : 
Proposition, "The Use of Money"; divisions, (1) Make 
all you can, (2) Save all you can, (3) Give all you can to the 
poor. And here is one in which the error is not quite so easily 
corrected : Text, " Hallowed be Thy name " ; proposition, 
"Filial Reverence toward God"; divisions, (1) Our prayers 
should be offered in the spirit of reverence, (2) Profanity is 
the most flagrant irreverence, (3) To murmur at God's provi- 
dence in time of poverty or sickness is irreverent. Here num- 
bers (2) and (3) are not of equal rank with number (1), but are 
subdivisions respectively of some such propositions as the fol- 
lowing, which are coordinate with number (1), — viz., (2) Our 
conversation should be conducted in the spirit of reverence, 
(3) Our attitude toward the providence of God should be 
reverent. 

Sometimes a single division is made coextensive with the 






304 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

proposition. The following was offered as an exercise in this 
class-room : Text, Mark xiv. 3-9 ; proposition, " Love the Con- 
dition of Acceptable Service"; divisions, (1) How love mani- 
fests itself, (2) The relation of love to service. As soon as 
this outline was read to its author he saw that in the second 
division he had done little more than repeat his proposition in 
somewhat different language. 

Now errors, like truths, have a strong affinity for one an- 
other. Accordingly we find that non-coordinate divisions are 
likely to be at the same time cross-divisions. E.g., if in the 
Psalmist's words, " It is good for me to draw near to God " 
(Ps. Ixxiii. 28), we should find the subject, " Benefits of Com- 
munion with God," and name as our divisions such particulars 
as (i)Joy; (2) Peace ; (3) Strength ; (4) Happiness, — we should 
fall into both these errors. For joy and peace are a part of 
happiness, included in it, subordinate to it. The same may be 
said of the following plan, which was presented here for criti- 
cism not long since: The Resurrection of Christ (1) comforts 
our hearts, (2) confirms our hopes. The latter truth is in- 
cluded in the former : one of the ways in which the Resurrec- 
tion comforts our hearts is by confirming our hopes. 

5. Let them be few i?i number. Make an estimate of the 
time at your disposal. The sermon may be, let us say, from 
thirty to forty minutes in length. For introduction, proposi- 
tion, transitions, and conclusion we may allow ten or fifteen 
minutes. This leaves from fifteen to thirty minutes for amplifi- 
cation. How much time is required for the development of 
a division, — stating, explaining, proving, illustrating, applying, 
as need may be? Evidently you cannot develop many. 

But should the sermon be forty minutes long? Not ordi- 
narily. Where the preacher addresses the same congregation 
Sunday after Sunday, thirty minutes is time enough. Even 
on extraordinary occasions, indeed, it would seldom be amiss 
to recall the famous dictum of Whitefield, that there are few 
conversions after the first half-hour. 



DIVISIONS-REQUISITES, All NOR TOPICS 305 

As the proposition need not exhaust the text, so the divisions 
need not exhaust the proposition. A certain measure of com- 
pleteness, to be determined by the preacher's own intuitions 
and judgment, without formal rules, is all that can be de- 
manded. Meagerness, inadequacy, "making nothing out of 
the subject," must, of course, be avoided ; but to exhaust your 
theme— you had as well attempt to drain off an inlet of the 
" multitudinous seas." 

Too much analysis will give your discourse the form of a 
philosophical disquisition, at the cost of the characteristic 
sweetness and force of Christian preaching. There is a good 
suggestion in the idea of the school-boy who said, in reply to 
a question of his teacher, that he preferred half an apple to 
eight sixteenths : " More juice. Cut up an apple into eight 
sixteenths, and you lose half the juice in doing it." The 
sermon is neither an essay or meditative effusion, on the one 
hand, nor an exposition in philosophy, on the other. It is an 
argument, an oration, an orderly and earnest talk. Hence it 
must give the hearer the sense of guidance and progress, not 
of sauntering, and not of exploration. Direct, continuous, 
accelerating, is the true oratorical movement. 

Seldom will you be able to handle more than four divisions 
effectively. Often the best possible number is two. 

6 . Let them consist, as far as possible, of strong a?id suggestive 
thought. I have been careful here to put in a saving clause. 
We may not always be able to command a series of ideas 
which we should be willing to characterize as strong and sug- 
gestive. But let us at least refuse to employ divisions that are 
feeble and barren. They must be points of significance, astir 
with the life-forces of the subject. This for two reasons: it 
makes them peculiarly effective in themselves, — in the bare 
announcement of them ; and, chiefly, the amplification will take 
its character, to a greater or less extent, from the divisions. 

Sometimes, however, these directive and governing ideas 
are about the feeblest part of the whole discourse. They are 



306 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

picked up from the very surface of the subject, or obtained by 
some mechanical method. Or perhaps a division is introduced 
for the sake of some illustration or other subordinate matter ; 
which is an exact reversal of the true order. A division may 
indeed be suggested by materials already gathered, and may 
utilize them in its development ; but they must be accepted 
for its sake, not it for theirs. 

One mode of dividing a text, which has found favor with 
some preachers, is to take up its various parts and simply 
state their rhetorical form and quality. We may select an 
example from Spurgeon : Text, Ezekiel xxxiii. 1 1 ; divisions, 
(i) A solemn declaration, (2) An earnest exhortation, (3) A 
tender expostulation. But this method is more formal than 
fruitful. To be truly strong and suggestive, textual divisions 
must interpret the substance of the text, and not merely describe 
its forms. 

7. Let them be expressed with clearness and precision, — like 
the proposition. 

8. Let them be arranged in the oratorical order. The office 
of logic is to convince the intellect ; the office of oratory, as 
we know, to persuade the will. The sermon being a distinc- 
tively oratorical or persuasive address, its arrangement through- 
out should be oratorical. 

Note, however, that this never implies an illogical arrange- 
ment. The two orders are not alien to each other, and much 
less are they in conflict. They coincide. Evidently this would 
be expected ; for it is only through instruction and conviction 
that the rational will is reached with motives. The examples 
already given of divisions will illustrate this coincidence. 

But here is the point that requires attention. It is possible 
sometimes to arrange the divisions of a discourse in more than 
one logical order ; and in this case we must choose that which 
we believe to be oratorically the best. Let us take as an ex- 
ample a plan that we have already had before us in a different 
connection : " The Highest Help Only can Satisfy Our Needs " 



DIVISIONS—REQUISITES, MINOR TOPICS 307 

in (i) temptation, (2) in sorrow, (3) in doubt, (4) in sin. Here 
the arrangement would have been equally logical if the idea 
of sin had been made the first division instead of the last. 
But the oratorical reasons are decisive for placing it last. It 
awakens more powerful feelings, and hence more powerfully 
influences the will than does any of the other ideas ; and the 
most effectual process of persuasion is that not simply of 
cumulation, but of climax. The place for the strongest motive 
is the last. Or, again, in such a subject as " The Difficulty 
and the Possibility of Holy Living," the order I have here 
observed in stating the line of treatment, and the reverse order, 
are equally logical. But they are not equally persuasive. It 
would make a stronger final impression to show that a certain 
course of conduct, though difficult, is possible, than to show 
that, though possible, it is difficult. 

Note, moreover, that in determining the true oratorical order, 
reference is had to the specific object of the sermon. Whom 
do I wish to persuade, and in what direction ? — is the question 
to be asked. Suppose, e.g., your subject is " Grieving the 
Holy Spirit," and you propose to show that the Spirit may be 
grieved by worldliness, by unbelief, by direct resistance, and by 
indifference. What order shall be chosen? More particularly, 
which topic shall be given last? It depends upon what class of 
persons you are trying especially to reach, — upon which of the 
sins enumerated you are trying especially to expose and con- 
demn. Let that be the last. So, likewise, in preaching on 
" The Holy Spirit as the Helper of our Infirmities " (Rom. 
viii. 26), and speaking of such infirmities as ignorance, distrac- 
tion of mind, and despondency, if you have one class of halting 
souls rather than another in mind, give their infirmity the posi- 
tion of emphasis. Again, in preaching on a good and an evil 
life, or on good and evil influence, you will consider whether 
your object is more particularly to encourage the Christian or 
to dissuade the sinner, and will arrange the order of your two 
topics accordingly. 



308 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Criticise the following sets of divisions with respect to ora- 
torical order: 
"Looking at Things Rightly" ("Thou hast well seen," 

Jer. i. 12). 

1. We are all apt to make egregious mistakes when we 
look at our heavenly Father's providential dealings. 

2. If we possessed more spiritual discernment, we should 
not so often torment ourselves with sinful anxieties 
about the future. 

3. A right spiritual discernment will check our impatience 
in regard to the issue of God's wise dealings and dis- 
cipline. 

4. There is a right way and a wrong way of looking at 
things. 

Cuyler. 

" Christ's Method of Dealing with Honest but Doubting In- 
quirers" (Matt. xi. 2-6). 

1. He called their attention to the appropriate facts. 

2. He declared the blessedness of those who are not 
offended in Him. 

3. He did not rebuke. 

4. His answer was not direct and complete. 

" Christian Giving " (Acts iii. 6). 
i. The gift. 
2. The opportunity. 

" Wisdom toward the Unbelieving " (Col. iv. 5). 

1. The highest practical wisdom toward the unbelieving 
is a pure Christian life. 

2. We must present them with a likeness, not a caricature, 
of religion. 

3. We must not comfort them in their sins. 

4. We must have respect to their prejudices and adapt 
ourselves generally to their state of mind. 

" Stewardship " (" Give an account of thy stewardship," Luke 
xvi. 2). 

1. Of real and personal estate. 

2. Of mind. 



DIVISIONS-REQUISITES, MINOR TOPICS 309 

3. Of the religion in which we find our peace and happi- 
ness as Christians. 

4. Of influence. 

5. Of health and life. 

Liddon. 

IV. -Some Minor Topics. 

1. Shall the divisions be announced only as they arise for 
discussion ? The object of preannouncement is to present the 
subject at the outset in the unity of its leading ideas. The 
dangers attending it are formality and abatement of intellec- 
tual interest. Three cases may be noted : 

(1) A twofold division may be preannounced with good 
effect. This can be commonly done without the appearance 
of formality ; nor will the edge of curiosity be dulled, because 
such a division of the subject discloses little more than an 
ordinary proposition. Indeed, it may often be equally well 
expressed in a single compound proposition. It is even better 
to say, e.g., " My subject is 'The Difficulty and the Possibility 
of Holy Living,' " than to say, " My subject branches into two 
divisions: (1) The difficulty of holy living; (2) its possi- 
bility. So, when F. W. Robertson announces as the two 
divisions of his sermon on 1 Kings xix. 4, "(1) The causes 
of Elijah's despondency, and (2) God's treatment of it," 
he is only stating, in the form of preannounced divisions, what 
might have been given as the proposition of the discourse, — 
"The Causes of Elijah's Despondency, and God's Treatment 
of it." 

When the two divisions take the form of a contrast the unity 
is more perfect, and the effect of announcing them as one 
proposition stronger. For example : " The Irrevocable Past 
and the Available Future" (Robertson); "The Fatal Power 
of the Sorrow of the World, and the Life-giving Power of 
the Sorrow that is after God" (ibid.); "The Unlawful Use 
and the Lawful Use of Law (ibid.) ; " The Pleasures and the 
Penalties of Sin." 



310 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

(2) If we have more than three divisions, preannouncement 
may be expected usually to detract from the interest of the 
sermon. In addition to the reasons already indicated, it will 
foreshadow a longer and more analytic discussion than the 
congregation will probably feel prepared for. In such a case, 
if it should seem to be demanded that the main thoughts be 
brought together in one view, a skilful recapitulation after the 
discussion may serve the purpose better than preannounce- 
ment. 

(3) How about the intermediate ease, — when we have three 
divisions? In the generality of instances you will probably 
see no sufficient reason here for preannouncement. Yet it 
sometimes seems to suit the subject well, especially when 
well done. No one would say that Maclaren is uninterest- 
ing in the announcement of his threefold theme from Luke 
vii. 47 : "So that now I have simply to ask you to look with 
me for a little while at these three persons representing for us 
the divine love that came forth among sinners, and the two- 
fold form in which that love is received. There is, first, Christ, 
the love of God, appearing among men, and the foundation of all 
our love to Him. Then there is the woman, the penitent sinner, 
lovingly recognizing the divine love. And then, last, there is 
the Pharisee, the self-righteous ?nan, ignorant of himself, and 
e?npty of all love to God." 

2. Is it a matter of any importance that the divisions should 
be alike in structure ? As in the case of the main proposition, 
there are three forms in which these subordinate propositions 
may appear : the declarative, the titular, and the interrogative. 
A single example will illustrate them all: Text, James v. 20; 
divisions, (1) The sinner is in error, (2) Whither does the 
way of error lead? (3) The great results of the sinner's con- 
version. Now we shall all probably agree that such a variety 
of forms in a series of divisions is undesirable. It tends to 
disturb rather than to steady the mind, whereas similarity of 
form is an aid to both the understanding and the memory. 



DIVISIONS-REQUISITES, MINOR TOPICS 311 

A small matter, will you say? To be sure; and hence I 
have classed it as such. But even a fraction is not to be dis- 
regarded, as if it were convertible with zero. It is not the 
mark of a little mind to perceive the significance of little things 
and award them the rightful share of attention. 

On the other hand, a series of divisions may fit together 
with too formal or pretty an exactness. Take the following 
as examples : " The Image and the Furnace " (Dan. hi. i i-i 7) ; 

(1) The tyrant's decree, — bow or burn; (2) The heroes' reso- 
lution, — burn, not bow; (3) The Lord's decision, neither 
bow nor burn. " The Biography of a Worldly Young Man " 
(Luke xv. 11-17); (1) Gladness; (2) Badness; (3) Madness; 
(4) Sadness. These are exhaustive in their contents, and in 
form extremely neat and easily remembered, but suggestive of 
joiner- work rather than of efflorescence. Alliteration and 
rhyme are poetic devices. 

3. Shall there be distinctly marked subdivisions ? This de- 
pends on the number and the nature of the divisions. If there 
be only two, one or both may require subdivisions made sen- 
sible to the hearer. In Robertson's sermon, referred to a 
moment ago, four subdivisions of the causes of Elijah's 
despondency are given, — (1) Relaxation of physical strength ; 

(2) Want of sympathy; (3) Want of occupation; (4) Disap- 
pointment in the expectation of success ; and an equal number 
under his second main division. The twofold division was 
Robertson's almost invariable method, probably because, with- 
out the sacrifice of simplicity, it is favorable to elaboration. 

Notice, however, that in the example just given, not only 
does the fewness of the divisions leave the way open for sub- 
divisions, but the first division is of such a nature as to require 
them. That is to say, when we propose, as a division, causes, 
reasons, classes, and the like, we are called upon to enumerate, 
which is the same thing as formally to subdivide. 



LECTURE XVII 

THE AMPLIFICATION 

THE plan of the sermon has now been gained, and is lying 
before the mind clear and distinct. Something more, 
we may hope ; but this at least. What remains is to unfold 
the plan into the completed discourse. 

Now these two processes — planning and composition — are 
not indeed radically unlike, but are different enough to make 
decidedly different demands upon the mental powers. The 
one is more logical, the other more imaginative ; the one more 
analytic, the other more synthetic ; the one more intellectual, 
the other more emotional. Composition is excursive. As 
compared with planning, it more freely follows the lead of 
merely suggested ideas, and thus sets in motion a fuller current 
of thought, and makes much larger use of language. Hence 
some minds devise plans with accuracy and ease, but develop 
them only through the most painstaking effort ; while of other 
minds exactly the opposite is true. A clear thinker is not 
necessarily vivacious, impressionable, of nimble fancy, and 
always ready to speak his mind. Another man may talk with 
unbroken fluency, and not in an altogether inconsequent 
manner, on any topic that interests him, whereas close and 
consecutive thinking would be to him a sore drudgery, if not 
an impossibility. 

The first thing, in evolving the sermon out of the plan, is to 
develop the line of thought in the divisions. How is this done ? 
312 



THE AMPLIFICATION 313 

I. The Intellectual Acts. 

Of these the first to be considered is the memory. Most of 
the ideas that come into the mind, in the act of original com- 
position, have been there before. They are not really new- 
comers, but old acquaintances returned. 

The preacher must have abundant knowledge. He must 
not be a clerical "case-lawyer," — reading and thinking al- 
most solely with reference to the sermon he is making at any 
particular time. The sermon should not be seen to impoverish 
the preacher. In Greek the same word is used for learned and 
eloquent (Acts xviii. 24). Recently I heard a young man who 
probably did not know so much as the meaning of the word 
homiletics remark, and in no unkind spirit, concerning his 
present pastor and the one that had immediately preceded him, 

" Mr. A preaches as if he were using all he had been able 

to gather up ; but Mr. B preached as if he had a great 

deal more than he was putting into the sermon." A rich and 
increasing store of knowledge is needful ; but also the power 
readily to recall it, — to make it present again whenever needed. 
A tenacious memory, capable with due effort of reproducing 
knowledge, is what the scholar needs ; but a ready memory, 
reproducing spontaneously its acquisitions, is the speaker's 
desideratum. 

Then the imagination must do its part, — discerning analo- 
gies, looking beneath the surface of nature and human life, 
picturing the spiritual and the past, making new combinations 
of knowledge, lifting on high its ideals. The habitual state of 
every mind is a state of knowledge. Moreover, when medi- 
tating on some specific subject we find that ideas associated 
with that subject appear and multiply. What shall we do 
with them? Interpret them? Combine them in various 
relations with one another and thus make new truth appear? 
Every mind does this, more or less nobly and perfectly ; and 
the power by which it is done is the creative imagination. 

But logical insight and direction are also required. The 



314 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

choice and arrangement of ideas must always be reasonable ; 
sometimes it will be argumentative. Judgments will be formed, 
proofs put together, inferences drawn. Not only the imagi- 
nation, then, but also the reasoning power — each in its own 
way — takes in hand the materials presented and elaborates 
them into new forms, disclosing new ideas and truths. 

Then, again, there must be verbal expression. We are some- 
times told that if we can but find ideas they will find their own 
words. And it may be true that what a man knows thoroughly 
he will be able somehow to tell. But " somehow " is an ex- 
ceedingly wide term. There will be a notable difference in 
the telling in different cases, though the knowledge should be 
entirely the same. I had a man sawing wood for me, a few 
days ago, who can neither read, write, hear, nor speak ; and 
even he seems usually able to express his ideas somehow. But 
it is painful to see him try, and hard to make out his meaning. 
Still more painful is it to see a speaker hesitating and striving 
for words, balked and embarrassed, and saying finally what 
neither he intends nor we understand. It may be for lack of 
something to say. The man was probably correct in his judg- 
ment who interrupted the ranting orator's exclamation, " O for 
words, words, words!" with the cruel remark, "You are mis- 
taken ; it is not words you are in need of, but ideas." Very 
true is it, " Of all defects of utterance, the most serious is hav- 
ing nothing to utter." But a man may have somewhat to say 
and not wherewithal to say it. What he needs is a vocabulary 
and the command of it. Suppose him to be, for example, a 
foreigner with an imperfect knowledge of English : you would 
know what advice to give him. The same advice would often 
be appropriate to an Englishman speaking English. 

Now one may fall into the error of giving more attention 
to the language than to the thought,— reading the notes rather 
than feeling and giving out the music. This blunder is at least 
eighteen hundred years old. "The best words," says Quin- 
tilian, " generally attach themselves to our subject and show 



THE AMPLIFICATION 315 

themselves by their own light ; but we set ourselves to seek for 
words as if they were hidden and trying to keep themselves 
from being discovered. We never consider that they are found 
close to the subject on which we are to speak, but look for 
them in strange places, and do violence to them when we have 
found them." The more effortless the finding of words, the 
better ; therefore must we acquire an affluent vocabulary, and 
by practice have it at command. 

II. The Action of the Will. 

What can be done to set the intellect at work? What kind 
of exertion can we put forth to excite and direct these powers 
of memory, imagination, reasoning, and speech? 

Let me note two things before offering a direct answer to 
the question : 

[a] We should not have a bare plan to begin with. Have 
we not found that the invention of materials and the invention 
of divisions naturally go on together? Many are the ways in 
which sermons begin. Thomas Chalmers, while pastor at Kil- 
many, overtook in the public road a man striding lazily along, 
with his hands in his pockets. A few paces behind came his 
wife, wearily making her way, " a bairn in one hand and a 
bundle in the other," — the man meanwhile rudely commanding 
her to " keep up." The young preacher went home and wrote 
his sermon on " Courteousness " (i Pet. iii. 8). In a similar 
manner have thousands of sermons originated. One idea— a 
mere hint suggested by a text of Scripture, an incident, a casual 
remark — is enough. The mind is stimulated to activity ; the 
single point of light expands. Other thoughts arise, an illus- 
tration is suggested, inferences are drawn : we have a group of 
ideas related, with various degrees of vitality, to some text or 
topic, and to one another. By this time, let us suppose, the 
line of thought, the plan, has become clearly defined. But 
here and there are also materials of development, — in some 
parts of the sermon enough to serve our purpose. So we have 
all these beforehand thoughts at the outset. 



316 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

And (b) we shall have afterthoughts. The study-hour is 
ended ; you have laid aside your unfinished sermon. You are 
making a pastoral visit, reading a book, conversing with a friend, 
enjoying rest or recreation. But the subject on which you were 
at work in the study is not wholly out of mind. Unconsciously 
it influences somewhat the drift of your thoughts. Now and 
then it comes up in consciousness, and appears perhaps in some 
new light. A difficulty over which you labored in vain is 
solved, a new train of thought is started, an illustrative exam- 
ple presents itself. And this without any effort of the will. It 
is reflex action : the mind goes back and dreams out that which 
it could not think out. In this way sometimes the best poetry 
arises, the best mechanical inventions, the best thoughts for 
preaching. 

But the question remains, How shall we go to work directly 
upon the plan of a sermon, so as to develop it into a fuller pre- 
sentation of the subject? 

It must be always with an uplifted heart. I cannot conceive 
of a preacher of the Gospel preparing a sermon otherwise than 
prayerfully. We can make the truth of God our veritable 
possession, and gain the power of communicating it to others, 
only as the men of the Bible did. Through self-crucifixion, 
through open-heartedness toward God, on the still housetop of 
prayer, the Vision will be seen. God who bids us preach will 
give the Word, if we wait trustfully on Him. Not only the 
Word, but the words, the forms of thought and utterance, may 
be from Him. Through His blessing on our own efforts, how- 
ever, not as a substitute for them. What, then, shall these 
efforts be? 

The answer— as in the case of the invention of divisions- 
may be concentrated in the single word attention. Attend to 
what you are doing. Break the spell of reverie. Refuse to 
follow the lead of wandering thoughts. Get into full sympathy 
with the truth to be developed, and keep close to it in sym- 
pathy and love. Were you to ask the ablest preacher of your 
acquaintance what he did to develop a theme, — how he found 



THE AMPLIFICATION 317 

the ideas old and new in which it came forth so strong and 
complete to the congregation,— he would probably reply that 
the only effort he was conscious of was to keep this and that 
power of his mind in contact with it. Then the ideas seemed 
to come of themselves ; not at once, perhaps, but sooner or 
later. It was like the multiplication of microscopic plants by 
"budding" or "division." 

Attention is the energetic application of the mind to an ob- 
ject. Sometimes it is spontaneous. The mind is drawn to the 
object. One has but to yield and receive whatever may be 
given, somewhat as in the case just mentioned of reflex action. 
You may be merely browsing in a library, or apparently doing 
nothing at all, when some subject opens up and some of the 
best thoughts you have ever had take form and appear. But 
that which we need specially to consider is voluntary attention. 
This, it is evident, contains two elements, one from the intellect, 
and the other from the will. That which we apply to a sub- 
ject of study is the intellect ; but the applying of it is an act of 
the will, a voluntary putting forth of effort. And the act must 
be repeated over and over: it must be a persistent and pro- 
tracted attention. 

Apply your memory to a subject : your past knowledge of it 
and about it will come back. Apply the imagination: the sub- 
ject takes new shapes, gives out new meanings, flashes some 
happy thought into the mind. Apply the judgment: ideas will 
combine or stand apart, according to their agreements or dis- 
similarities. Apply the reasoning poiuer: reasons and infer- 
ences appear. Apply the power of expression: thoughts will 
find fitting forms of speech. How does all this come to pass 
in obedience to our will? Ask the metaphysicians— and find 
them, as helpless before the mystery of it as other people. 
We have to do it without knowing how. 

I have said nothing about reading, which in many instances 
of sermon-making, I suspect, constitutes no small part of the 
thinking. 

Better than looking into books is meditation. Look into 



318 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

your own soul ; not so much into the intellect for ideas as into 
the heart for experiences. What has your inner life been? 
Tell it, and you will be describing the case of others. What 
do you know yourself to need? It is the need of those to 
whom you are preparing to minister. What is the voice of the 
Divine Spirit within? Put that voice into words. Richer in 
materials of preaching than you can yet be made to believe is 
the book of the soul. 

But reading may be resorted to, either for intellectual and 
spiritual uplifting, or for information. The former of these 
two objects is undoubtedly approvable. Contact with another 
mind may greatly quicken one's own. Have we not an every- 
day illustration of it in conversation? More than once, in the 
midst of preparation to preach, I have suffered the visit of a 
friend, and on returning to my studies have had reason to thank 
him for the interruption. The intellect becomes sluggish and 
somber by being too much alone. A few minutes of good 
company will make it sweeter and brighter ; and that of a fa- 
vorite author is generally the most stimulating. It is certainly 
the most manageable. 

But you must be honest with yourself. Do not lapse into 
reading as a relief from the effort to think, but take it up ener- 
getically as a help. Read creatively rather than receptively. 
Use your book as material of thought, not passively indulging 
yourself with it as an intellectual feather-bed. 

With reference to reading for information, four cases may 
be briefly characterized : 

(a) No reading whatever (always excepting the Scriptures, 
the critical commentary, and necessary books of reference). 
Ordinarily the best method. 

(b) Reading after the sermon has been substantially pre- 
pared, in order to find, either directly or through suggestion, 
materials for strengthening its weak points. An unobjection- 
able method, and often expedient. 

(c) Reading first. As soon as the selection of the theme 



THE AMPLIFICATION 319 

has been made, turning to written sources of information, 
gathering what we can, combining it with what we have of our 
own, and fusing all into one homogeneous discourse. An un- 
desirable method,— apparently effective, but really repressive 
of personal power. 

(d) Reading for appropriation, without assimilation. Mak- 
ing the sermon, or a large part of it, in a scrappy way, out of 
expositions, ideas, illustrations, expressions, furnished from the 
book-shelf. Such materials — to compare small things with 
great — are like the conquered provinces of a warlike empire, 
held together by the iron hand, not unified, not coherent. A 
totally wrong method, intellectually and morally, — fatal alike 
to self-respecting manliness and to strong, characteristic, 
earnest preaching. 

One more suggestion. Indulge sparingly in quotation. 
Thought and feeling, like a transplanted tree, lose vitality in 
such transference. It may be well sometimes, in proof or 
illustration of what you have been saying, to quote testimony ; 
or a striking quotation of a different character, if it be perti- 
nent and brief, may be used effectively. One sentence is 
usually better than more. To make considerable extracts from 
other men's writings in a sermon (no matter what their intrinsic 
excellence) is to miss the true secret of power in oral discourse. 
Downright earnestness is embarrassed by them ; oratory will 
have none of them. Such quotations may easily become too 
frequent in didactic treatises, like a text-book on systematic 
theology or homiletics ; and much more are they intrusive and 
enfeebling in oratory, in talking to people, in preaching. Note 
the difference, in this respect, between Watson's " Theological 
Institutes " and his " Sermons." In the former, various authors 
are quoted, and frequently at great length ; in the latter, almost 
none. 

On this whole subject of homiletic reading and quotation 
the attitude of Wesley, as described in the preface to his 
" Sermons," will illustrate the true principle : " My design is 



320 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

in some sense to forget all that I have read in my life. I 
mean to speak, in the general, as if I had never read one 
author, ancient or modern (always excepting the inspired). I 
am persuaded that, on the one hand, this may be a means of 
enabling me more clearly to express the sentiments of my 
heart, while I simply follow the chain of my own thoughts 
without entangling myself with those of other men ; and that, 
on the other, I shall come with fewer weights on my mind, 
with less of prejudice and prepossession, to search for myself 
or to deliver to others the naked truths of the Gospel." With 
which quotation allow me to conclude my remarks on the 
subject. 

III. The Materials. 

Something more definite may be said as to attention,— this 
stretching to of our minds to a subject. We may apply the 
mind to one or another aspect of the subject, may take one or 
another line of treatment. This is true of the sermon as a 
whole, and it is equally true of any one of its leading ideas, 
or divisions. 

Let us reduce the matter to its simplest form. Suppose you 
have a division to develop, and not a single pertinent thought 
rises into consciousness ; so that you have been unable thus far 
to make a start. You are not helpless. There are at least cer- 
tain pertinent questions that may be asked. They are questions 
as to the kinds of material needed in the purposed amplifica- 
tion ; and the answer will depend on the nature of the subject, 
in connection with the specific object, of the sermon. 

You may ask (a), "Will this proposition be clear to my 
hearers? " If not, it requires explanation. Perhaps the lan- 
guage needs to be explained, — by definition or paraphrase. 
Perhaps the idea needs to be made plainer, —by comparison 
with other ideas, by illustrative examples, and so on. It is 
not impossible that you will need to clarify your own know- 
ledge of it, to explain it to yourself. 

You may ask (b), " Are there those in my congregation who 



THE AMPLIFICATION 321 

will doubt this proposition, or, believing it, will need to have 
the conviction of its truth strengthened?" If so, an argu- 
mentative development may be called for. Where is your 
proof ? Scripture, common experience, testimony, acknow- 
ledged principles, personal experience, — in some of these 
sources you may find reasons for your proposition ; and this is 
the thing to be attended to now. 

You may ask (c), " Can anything be done to make this sub- 
ject real to those who shall hear me? " If it be susceptible 
of description, that may have the desired effect. A good illus- 
tration will perhaps serve the purpose better. You may recall 
some illustration once known ; or something entirely new may 
be suggested, as you ask, " What is this like? " Or, failing in 
these efforts, you may turn to your homiletic note-book for 
the needed material. 

The one work before you now is to picture the truth. 

Still again, you may ask (d), " Shall I apply this subject 
practically? Shall I endeavor by exhortation and practical 
inference to lay it on the heart and conscience of the people ? " 

Here let us linger a moment. It is worth while to emphasize 
the invariable appropriateness of this last inquiry. Always 
must application and persuasion be kept in mind. Very signifi- 
cant was the artless comment made upon a preacher who had 
wedded to his strong thinking an equal applicatory habit: 
" Why, he doesn't seem one bit like a preacher ; he just seems 
to be driving at us all the time." Often the discussion is too 
general. So much is said about sin, for example, that no time 
is left to speak of sins. Or some particular sin is indeed 
portrayed and denounced, elaborately, justly, eloquently per- 
haps, so that every hearer is ready to respond with an inward 
Amen ; but no one is made to feel that thereby he is con- 
demning himself. The various deceptive forms in which the 
sin appears are not pointed out. Its disguises are not torn 
off. The convicting truth is not so limited and specialized 
that the offender's eyes are opened to see and acknowledge 



322 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

his guilt. In like manner, a spiritual experience or an attain- 
ment in Christian character is set forth, with due fullness of 
language and earnestness of manner ; but not so as to constrain 
every willing soul to feel, " It is just what I need, and is within 
my reach ; I may and must have this blessing." 

It is said that one of Robert Hall's hearers remarked to 
another, after listening to a sermon on " The Sin and Absurdity 
of Covetousness " : "An admirable sermon, — yet why should 
such a sermon be preached? For probably not one person in 
the congregation, though it is not wanting in examples of the 
vice in question, would take the discourse as at all applicable 
to himself." John Foster, who relates the incident, adds, with 
his keen critical insight, "A lecture on covetousness which 
should concentrate its whole rebuke on the love of money 
taken abstractedly might even do mischief; for every hearer 
who could say he did not so love money would confidently 
infer that therefore he was not guilty of covetousness." 

Therefore, do not be so enamored of ideas and their un- 
folding as to forget what it is all for. Be always on the alert 
to develop your discussion along the line of its persuasive 
elements. 

Now of course you will usually need more than one of these 
kinds of material in the development of your one division. 
The line of thought will change its direction at this and that 
point,— from explanation to proof, and so on. 

Is the reminder also necessary, that no material should be 
used just because it is at hand? If explanation be not needed, 
let none be given. So with argument, and the rest. Here, 
perhaps, is the most common source of superficial and tiresome 
amplification. Things are said for which no excuse can be 
offered, except that it was possible and convenient to say them. 
A good bridge-builder will not attempt to utilize unnecessary 
or worthless material, laying a second floor when the first fully 
answered the purpose, or using wood where iron only is trust- 
worthy. Is he under obligation to use up all his material in 



THE AMPLIFICATION 323 

the one structure? Or does the bridge have to be built, re- 
gardless of its character? 
IV. The Product. 

Such, then, are the materials to be sought for and used. 
And now one thing more : These materials being worked up 
into a development of the theme, what qualities shall this 
amplification have? 

To say that it must be ( i ) relevant might seem like deliver- 
ing the tritest of truisms. Nevertheless, irrelevance cannot be 
described as a rare fault, nor as one which every speaker is 
aware of and every hearer immediately detects. As in reason- 
ing we have the familiar fallacy of "irrelevant conclusion," in 
which the debater loses sight of the precise point of the con- 
troversy, and as in sermon-making the proposition is not always 
pertinent to the text, nor the divisions to the proposition, — so 
does the amplification often go astray from its idea. The 
very best possible plan, like a sound tree preyed upon by 
parasites, may be made to sustain a good deal which in no 
proper sense of the word grows out of it. 

If we follow too freely the lead of the mere casual associa- 
tions of ideas rather than of their logical sequence, we are 
almost certain to say much that is not pertinent. 

Another cause of irrelevance is the determination to intro- 
duce certain material for its supposed intrinsic value, without 
reference to the interrelations of thought. It seems too good 
to be omitted, — that striking historic fact, that fresh and 
sparkling truth, that original illustration, — and so we find or 
make a place for it, though its suitability lie open to serious 
doubt. It must produce a strong impression, we fancy, no 
matter when or where it may appear. 

Still another cause is the necessity of saying something when 
nothing pertinent seems available. It may perhaps be said of 
this necessity that it knows no law. But the competent preacher, 
in all ordinary circumstances, can, if he will, find material 
enough for the fitting development of his points of discourse. 



524 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

The amplification should be (2) continuous. Here the formal 
sermonizer is often at fault. His procedure is mechanical. 
First he must have his plan. Then, taking up the divisions 
one by one, he gives a treatment of each, without the free and 
repeated movement of his mind through the whole subject. 
His divisions are literally divisions. The sermon is a series of 
separate little discourses, — each successive part not growing 
naturally out of the preceding, no one life-current flowing 
through them all. 

True, there will be transitions, very many, even in the strong 
and continuous movement of interblended thought, feeling, 
and purpose that constitutes the true sermon. But they will 
be, as in nature, easy and gradual, not abrupt, not a jumping 
off one train of cars and taking another. 

Remember, too, that it is one thing to move freely and 
unbrokenly through a subject yourself, and quite a different 
matter so to express it to your hearers that they may be 
able to do the same. You may leave out too many of the 
minor and intermediate ideas, — forgetting that your own mind 
passed from a to c by the help of o, and that your hearers are 
likely to need the same help. Or you may introduce the 
successive ideas of the discourse unskilfully. The conclusion 
of a syllogism might be written down after the premises, 
without any connective word ; but the result would be either 
an obscurity or an unpleasant little hiatus of thought. Hence 
the "therefore." So we cannot ordinarily omit the "ands," 
" fors," " althoughs," " notwithstandings," " therefores," etc., 
from the expression of continuous thought. Try it on the 
first piece of composition that comes to hand, and note the 
result. Only under strong emotional excitement, when speech 
tends to break up into exclamations and short, sharp impera- 
tives, can this be done. And of special importance is it that 
the successive constituent parts of the sermon be clearly con- 
nected by the appropriate words and phrases. 

I am not unaware that continuity may degenerate into 



THE AMPLIFICATION' 325 

prolixity. Nothing concise or suggestive in the style, nothing 
left to the hearer's imagination ; somewhat as if a man should 
indulge in the insufferable tediousness of talking in syllogisms 
instead of, like everybody else, in enthymemes. But it need 
not be so ; and we should have to search long and far to find 
any excellence that does not show some near-by road to error 
and failure. 

The amplification should (3) observe the oratorical order. 
What was said on this principle considered as a requirement of 
divisions, is equally apposite here, and need not be repeated. 

I will only remind you of how much the force and effec- 
tiveness of any thought, great or small, in the discourse, may 
depend on its location. Take the strongest sermon you know, 
and transpose introduction and conclusion— or, indeed, any 
two sentences! Nor is it more than a lazy conceit that, the 
amplification being a comparatively simple affair, its materials 
will naturally fall into the right order. They will do so exactly 
in proportion as the mind acts naturally,— that is to say, in 
proportion as it acts in accordance with the laws of thought 
and persuasive speech. But while making its wide explora- 
tion and gathering in its materials, the mind will not always 
lay down these gathered treasures in the right order. Hence 
the need of looking through them and using our judgment as 
to the best oratorical arrangement. 

The amplification should be (4) adequate. We have all 
heard sermons that were little better than outlines, — only a 
feeble, repetitious unfolding of the theme. On the other hand, 
there are preachers, though not so many as formerly, who seem 
loth to drop a truth so long as one additional word of explana- 
tion, proof, or illustration may be given. Midway between this 
deficiency and this excess is the adequacy at which we are to aim. 

Judge for yourself on what points a very few remarks will 
suffice, and what should be treated with greater thoroughness. 

And this suggests the last quality of the amplification that 
we shall note : 



326 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

It must be (5) proportio?iate. The thoughts most vitally 
related to the purpose of the sermon obviously demand a 
stronger treatment than those of less significance. For ex- 
ample, suppose your proposition should be, " It is through 
the Word of God that Men are Sanctified to His service" (John 
xvii. 17); and that you should employ four fifths of the discus- 
sion with showing what is meant by the Word of God and set- 
ting forth its general value and importance, leaving only the 
remaining fifth for that which is the very gist of the subject, — 
which is indeed the assertion itself, — the sanctifying power of 
the Word of God : in such a case the emphasis would be so 
badly misplaced that you could scarcely be said to have dis- 
cussed the proposition at all. 

In Dr. Chalmers's sermon on " The Paternal Character of 
God " (Matt. vii. 11) three fourths of the amplification is given 
to the depravity of human nature (" ye being evil ") ; after 
which the author remarks : " We have left ourselves but little 
room for that which is nevertheless the main lesson of our 
text, — a lesson of confidence in the liberality and good will of 
our Father in heaven." But why not go back and replan the 
discourse so as to make room for the truth which the text is so 
evidently intended to teach? 

Take another example, quoted from a newspaper : " I heard 
a sermon on the text, ' Where sin abounded, grace did much 
more abound ' ; and the comment of many hearers was that 
the preacher spent so much time in showing how sin abounded, 
and made such a strong presentation of that part of the text, 
that there was very little room left in which to show how grace 
did much more abound ; that truth was very feebly presented, 
and the impression left by the sermon was exactly the reverse 
of the truth taught by the text, namely, that, though grace 
somewhat abounded, sin did much more abound." 

Which is the paramount purpose of the preacher in such 
cases,— to present his subject, or to present some other sub- 
ject, or to get through with his sermon? 



LECTURE XVIII 



THE INTRODUCTION 



IF any part of the sermon may be expected to come of itself, 
it is the introduction. Certainly the preacher who habit- 
ually finds it hard to introduce his proposition may suspect 
that he has fallen into the habit of going about his task in 
some wrong way. Fix your attention on the main ideas of the 
subject ; form the plan ; trace out the amplification ; expand, 
condense, elaborate ; and if any word of introduction be neces- 
sary, it will probably, by this time, have been suggested. If 
not, look for it. But this may be regarded as an exceptional 
case. Especially do not suppose that because in the completed 
discourse the introduction is first, the order of composition 
must be the same. 

Indeed, if the teachings of the classic rhetoricians as to the 
objects of this part of an oration be taken as applicable to the 
sermon, we shall often feel no need of any introduction at all. 
"The Greeks," says Cicero in " De Oratore," "bid us adopt 
such an exordium as to make the hearers favorable to us, 
willing to be informed, and attentive." Quintilian gives the 
same analysis of the orator's objects in the introduction. And 
this doctrine is quoted with approval by some of the best 
homiletic writers of our day. Dr. Phelps tells us that he can- 
not improve this statement,— that "seldom can anyone improve 
a rhetorical statement by Cicero." But so far as the rhetoric 
of preaching is concerned, this statement of " that rarest com- 
327 



328 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

bination of rhetorical powers, a prince of orators and a prince 
of critics," seems to be by no means too good for improve- 
ment. Would Cicero have made it, I wonder, if he had had 
in mind (what he could not have entertained even a rudimen- 
tary conception of) the Christian pulpit? Think of the signifi- 
cant differences between a speech in the Roman forum and a 
speech in the Christian congregation. Given such a character 
and such an audience as those of the average political orator, 
in ancient or modern times, and it may well be recommended 
that, before entering on the discussion of his theme, the speaker 
shall occupy some time in an attempt to gain the favor of his 
hearers, to remove their prejudices against the cause he is 
about to advocate, and to arouse attention. 

But very different is the case of the preacher in the ordinary 
circumstances of the Christian ministry. He may assume the 
audience to be well-disposed toward himself, and both teach- 
able and attentive with respect to what he may have to 
deliver. Not perfectly so, of course ; but sufficiently for 
rendering it needless, if not obtrusive, to devote one constituent 
part of the discourse to the purpose of wakening these dis- 
positions in them. 

Not only is the attitude of the Christian congregation toward 
the preacher and his theme notably different from that of the 
political gathering; but in the congregation the preaching is 
not the first thing that claims attention. First there is wor- 
ship. And this would seem to be the best possible prepa- 
ration for the preaching. On what may we depend more 
confidently than on common prayer and praise to diffuse 
the same feeling throughout the assembly, in pulpit and pew, 
and thus to dispose the minds of all to "receive with meek- 
ness the ingrafted word " ? The reading of the Scriptures 
and the announcement of the text will have somewhat of 
the same effect. Even the undevout will feel the sacred 
influence of the occasion, and may be better prepared to 
hear the Word of God than any introductory address could 



THE INTRODUCTION 32§ 

have prepared them. A contemporary newspaper account of 
John Summerfield's preaching in the city of Baltimore men- 
tions, as one illustration of his wonderful attractiveness, "the 
deferent and solemn manner in which he led the congregation 
in worship"; and it is added, "Above all, the chaste and 
fervent simplicity of his petition to the Eternal swept away all 
prejudice, and opened every heart and every eye to the truth 
and beauty of holiness." 

But, although the " reddere auditores benevolos, attentos, 
dociles " deserves no prominent place, as a rule, in homiletics, 
yet the sermon, in fulfilling its plan, is likely to put forth an 
introduction. What, then, are some of the things to be noted 
in this form of development? 

I. Its Objects. 

Examine any hundred sermons representing a variety of 
authors and occasions ; and you will probably find that four 
fifths of them begin with explanatory matter. For example, 
a very common sort of introduction is an account of the cir- 
cumstances under which the text was written ; or, in the case 
of a historical text, the story of which it forms a part. What 
is this but a partial exposition of the passage? Often, indeed, 
the introduction is strictly exegetical, — an interpretation of the 
words of the text preparatory to the statement of the theme. 
It is the process by which the proposition is brought out, the 
blow that cracks the nut. Or the introduction may consist of 
some principle or fact that throws light on the theme, making 
it distinctly visible as soon as set forth. Indeed, if you will 
take the pains to mark the various kinds of introductory ma- 
terial to which I shall call your attention in a few minutes, you 
will find them nearly all to be explanatory. 

Clearly, then, whatever may be said of other public ad- 
dresses, the chief and characteristic object of the introduction 
of the sermon is to show the subject to the hearer, at the very 
outset, in the same light in which it appears to the speaker. 
In a word, it is explanation. 



330 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

But there are also subordinate objects. And here we can- 
not do better than to follow the suggestions of the classic 
doctrine. 

The first of these subordinate objects is to gain the good- 
will of the hearer. Suppose the preacher to be an apostle 
proclaiming the Cross of Christ in strange cities before pagans, 
and in the synagogue of unbelieving Jews. Suppose him to 
be a street-preacher or a foreign missionary of the present day. 
Or suppose him to be simply a stranger to the congregation 
before which he is standing. In such circumstances it may 
well be worth his while to begin with an introduction of himself . 
If there be any word that he can say to shake off the indiffer- 
ence or counteract the antagonism with which he is regarded, 
let him say it. Skilfully must it be done, as well as modestly 
and candidly; but that which prompts the effort is the true 
orator's instinct. The opening words of the apostle Peter's 
sermon at Pentecost repelled the charge of drunkenness that 
had been brought against him and his fellow-disciples,— 
" These are not drunken, as ye suppose," — and were thus 
fitted to gain the good-will of the audience. 

Another of these objects is to interest the hearer and thus 
stimulate his attention. It must be confessed, there is no little 
dull preaching, and of dull hearing fully as much. One of 
Van Oosterzee's points of inquiry, in his " Practical Theology," 
is, " Whence is it that so many sermons are so indescribably 
wearisome, even for those who are not wanting in earnestness 
and the gift of appreciation? " The answer is twofold, in the 
preacher and in the hearer. Even the somewhat " earnest 
and appreciative " hearer is often in a submissive and non-ex- 
pectant rather than in an eager state of mind. If the preacher 
can succeed, at the start, in quickening him into real and in- 
terested attention, it will bring him at once into vital contact 
with the subject of discussion. Certain classes of hearers 
especially need to be borne in mind : such as children, many 
of whom are present of necessity, not from choice ; young 



THE INTRODUCTION 331 

people, full of self-consciousness and the consciousness of one 
another ; old habitual church-goers inclined to be formal and 
slumberous ; worldly-minded men and women unfamiliar with 
Christian ideas and experiences. It is possible and certainly 
desirable, at the beginning, to incite all such persons to atten- 
tiveness. 

But we must also bear in mind that to awaken interest is not 
to sustain it, to gain attention is not to hold it fast and make 
it absorbing. Many a preacher is listened to with more in- 
terest the first five minutes than during any subsequent five 
minutes of his sermon. 

Still another subordinate object of the introduction is to 
make the congregation teachable. Sometimes there is preju- 
dice against the truth about to be delivered. Sinful minds are 
intellectually and morally preoccupied against the law of God. 
Most of this prejudice we have to find and meet, as best we 
may, outside our church walls; but some of it is willing to 
come within, though knowing that it is liable to be plainly 
spoken to without the privilege of reply. Shall we make a 
wise and reasonable use of our advantage, or carelessly throw 
it away ? Or, still worse, turn it into a disadvantage, and rivet 
the bolts that fasten the entrance-ways of those minds against 
us? We propose to preach on the subject of the spirituality 
of the law, or divine retribution, or the forgiveness of injuries, 
or worldliness, or the sale and use of intoxicating liquors, or 
some other doctrine, duty, or sin, the announcement of which 
will be provocative of opposition in certain minds. Surely 
whatever we can do to lessen this prejudice, before entering 
upon the discussion of the subject, will be a decided initial 
gain. 

Suppose, now, that such objects as I have mentioned do not 
need to be sought ; or suppose that they may be gained with- 
out devoting any specific part of the sermon to them : in this 
case we have only to begin without an introduction. To 
employ one would be formalism, a waste of time and oppor- 



332 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

tunity. I have heard a lecturer on homiletics say that he 
once asked his wife, an unusually intelligent and appreciative 
hearer of preaching, " What shall I tell my class this morning 
on the subject of the introduction?" "Tell them for me," 
she answered, " that the best way to introduce a sermon is to 
have no introduction." It was not by any means an idle or 
meaningless paradox. It reminds me of another which I 
have seen in a newspaper: "To begin at the beginning in 
writing a book or an editorial or a letter, in a conversation, a 
personal appeal, a Sunday-school lesson, a public address, or 
a sermon, is almost always a mistake." Abruptness, indeed, 
is not to be coveted. Certainly it is not to be affected. The 
preacher must not seem to be priding himself on his concise 
and businesslike style. Let him speak with the characteristic 
deference and gentleness of the orator; but sometimes with 
very little introduction, or none at all. 

II. Its Relation to the Subject. 

It follows from the foregoing argument that the introduction 
is not, as has been said of it, " a discourse before the prin- 
cipal discourse," " drawn from an idea which immediately 
touches the subject without forming part of it " ; but a gen- 
uine development of the subject in the direction of the mental 
state of the audience. Its relation to the body of the 
discourse is much more intimate than that of a preface to 
a book : the interplay of thought is unbroken. Even Cicero 
has said : " Nor is the exordium of a speech to be sought for 
from without, or from anything unconnected with the subject, 
but to be derived from the very essence of the cause. . . . 
Thus our exordia will give additional weight, when they are 
drawn from the most intimate parts of our defense ; and it will 
be shown that they are not only not common, and cannot be 
transferred to other causes, but that they have wholly grown 
out of the cause under consideration." A well-qualified archi- 
tect does not like to tack on a porch to a house ; the porch, in 
his plan, appears as a part of the house itself, — naturally grow- 



THE INTRODUCTION 333 

ing out of the main building. Similar, in sermon structure, is 
the relation of the introduction to the main body of dis- 
course. 

The oneness of the introduction with the rest of the dis- 
course is also suggested when we consider its location. True, 
it usually comes first of all, before even the announcement 
of the subject. But not always. Often it may with equal 
appropriateness follow the proposition ; and sometimes this 
arrangement is decidedly the more striking and forcible. 
Monod, e.g., in his sermon on "Are You a Christian?" 
(2 Cor. xiii. 5), begins with an interrogative statement of his 
theme : "Are you in the faith? Such is the question which I 
come to examine with you. Enter on this examination each 
for himself, and as if he were the only person in the world." 
Then the importance of this inquiry and its pertinence to the 
congregation are shown, — an introduction as truly vital to the 
subject as is the discussion itself. 

Now the introduction of the speaker, being personal to him- 
self, is indeed without organic relation to the discourse that 
follows, and may be used with equal propriety (or impropriety) 
in connection with any discourse. But not so the introduction 
of the sermon. This, as we have seen, is for the most part 
explanatory ; and explanation (ex-filanare, spreading out), 
whether it come before or after the announcement of the 
theme, is development. 

In like manner, thoughts employed for the purpose of in- 
teresting hearers in the subject, or of removing prejudice, will 
be most successful when they do not simply suggest the subject, 
touching it here and there, but come forth from it as a vital 
outgrowth. To a superficial glance the difference between 
the introduction of Paul's address at Athens, and his theme, 
is very great indeed,— the idolatry of the Athenians, "Jesus 
and the Resurrection." Yet it requires little consideration to 
show that we have here indicated, not the subject-matter of two 
discourses, one preliminary to the other ; but a vital unity. 



334 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

III. Its Qualities. 

What are the qualities in an introduction, through which 
its objects may be best attained ? It should be: 

i. Specific. As explanatory, it must indeed be often more 
general than the theme. The first thing to be done, in study- 
ing an object, is to locate it, — to take a general survey of the 
field and see where the object stands with reference to its sur- 
roundings. So the introduction to a subject of discourse will, 
in many instances, give a view of the connections of the text, 
or of some general principle in which the subject is included. 
But it may easily become too general and thus lose force and 
significance. A popular lecture on the necessity for some 
sanitary measure— say the draining of a town — might appro- 
priately begin with a few words on the more easily recognized 
relations of man to his physical environment, but hardly with 
a definition of life, or a demonstration of the theory of chemical 
affinity. I once heard a sermon which began as follows: 
" God exists. His Word and His works prove it. But man 
also exists," and so on. Where shall we find a subject that 
could not be brought under some such first principle of natural 
theology as the divine existence ? 

In exegetical introductions it is a happy art to put the ex- 
position, at a single stroke, into contact with the text. It may 
be, some simple question will be used to bring the two together. 
Or perhaps the exposition will follow the text so closely and 
inevitably as to seem almost like a continuation of it. Many 
admirable examples may be found in the homilies of Chrysos- 
tom,— such as the following: 

" ' 77ten Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise 
men, was exceeding wroth ' (Matt. ii. 16). Yet surely it was a 
case, not for anger, but for fear and awe : he ought to have 
perceived that he was attempting impossible things. But he 
was not refrained. . . ." 

" 'Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan ' (Matt. iii. 13). 
With the servants the Lord, with the criminals the Judge, 



THE INTRODUCTION 335 

Cometh to be baptized. But be not thou troubled, for in these 
humiliations His exaltation doth most shine forth. . . ." 

" ' Think not that lam come to destroy the law, or the prophets ' 
(Matt. v. 17). Why, who suspected this, or who accused Him, 
that He should make a defense against this charge? Since 
surely from what had gone before no such suspicion was 
generated. For to command men to be meek, and gentle, 
and merciful, and pure in heart, and to strive for righteousness, 
indicated no such design, but rather altogether the contrary. 

" Wherefore, then, can He have said this? Not at random, 
nor vainly : but inasmuch as He was proceeding to ordain 
commandments greater than those of old, saying . . ." 

" 'Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of 
Jerusalem, saying, Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition 
of the elders] etc. (Matt. xv. 1-6). Then — when? When 
He had wrought His countless miracles ; when He had healed 
the infirm by the touch of His garment. For even with this 
intent doth the evangelist mark the time, that he might signify 
their unspeakable wickedness, by nothing repressed." 

The introduction should not be what a certain generation 
of scholastic preachers liked to call it, a prm-ambulam, — a 
walking hither and thither before the subject. It is rather an 
ad- ambulant, —a. going to it. 

2. Distinct in its contents from all that follows. Otherwise 
it is not preparatory to the body of the discourse, but a part 
of it, and with the disadvantage of appearing out of due time. 
Then, on the second appearance, it seems to the hearer to be 
reached (as in fact it is) by some circular movement of the 
preacher's mind, which promises poorly for the progress of 
thought. And yet this is no infrequent fault of unpractised 
sermonizers. A clear idea of the design of the introduction, 
a firm grasp of the whole sermon held together before the mind 
in the unity of its successive parts, and the determination to 
advance steadily toward a definite end, are the preventives. 

While distinct from the body of the sermon, it is a fine 
quality of an introduction to excite expectation and give hints 
of an interesting discussion. But the promise must be fulfilled. 



336 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Better not awaken an expectation that is to be disappointed. 
Of Frederick Robertson's introductions it has been said : " The 
attention of the audience is immediately fastened upon a fresh 
train of thought, though simply expressed ; the door is thrown 
open to something new and powerfully attractive ; the mind is 
delighted with the prospect of obtaining new ideas on familiar 
but eternal truth, and of being led into a fresh field of instruc- 
tion." It need hardly be said that Robertson kept his 
promises. 

3. Easily intelligible. Evidently so, if the object of the in- 
troduction is to make the subject intelligible. An explanation 
that needs itself to be explained must prove a failure. And 
yet there are such. 

4. Varied as to its contents in different cases. In no part 
of the sermon will you be more apt to show that sure sign of 
the lack of life, sameness, than at its beginning. Most of the 
sermons that have been put in my hands for criticism begin 
with some account of the author of the text, the circumstances 
in which it was written, the people to whom it was first ad- 
dressed, or, when historical, the occurrences with which it 
stands connected. These in many instances are pertinent 
introductions, but so common as to make two questions 
equally pertinent : Is there anything picturesque or suggestive 
in my way of telling the story? and, What proportion of my 
introductions have any other kind of contents ? 

Think of the various kinds of material that are available 
for your purpose: (1) exegesis of the text; (2) exegesis of 
the context ; (3) personal observation and experience ; (4) some 
general principle under which the subject is included; (5) a 
series of truths or facts opening the way to the subject ; (6) 
similarity to some other truth; (7) contrast with opposite 
error; (8) argument from the less to the greater; (9) harmony 
of the subject with common belief and experience; (10) com- 
mendation of the subject; (11) suggestions of the occasion' 
(12) illustrative examples, — and others. Remember, too, the 



THE INTRODUCTION 337 

combinations of different materials that can be, and are, con- 
stantly made. No need of a tiresome monotony in the manner 
of introducing our subjects. 

I will resist the inclination to illustrate with examples, and 
shall hope for something better,— that you will do it for your- 
selves. Any volume of sermons on which you may lay your 
hand will serve the purpose. 

5. Proportionate with respect to the rest of the sermon. 
Practically this means brevity. For we need but to consider 
the object of this part of the discourse, together with the ob- 
ject of the amplification and of the conclusion, to be convinced 
that the tendency of introductions is to become disproportion- 
ately long. Dr. Joseph Parker's criticism on the sermons 
given him for examination by a company of young preachers, 
was that they were " equal to the best he had seen," but " in 
every case the introduction was too long," — "a. beautiful car- 
riage-drive, with only a cottage at the end of it." But of how 
large a class were they fairly representative! The earnest 
preacher, pressed for time in the midst of his sermon or in 
making the closing application, seems slow to learn what many 
an inconspicuous hearer might tell him, — that the subordinate 
function of merely introducing his subject had received far 
more than its rightful share of attention. 

I do not have to search far into my own stock of manu- 
scripts to find an example. Here is a sermon on the text, 
"The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities" (Rom. viii. 26), 
of which the introductory matter may be indicated in brief as 
follows : " Mere power is not attractive. Nor is there any 
necessary connection between power and goodness. But when 
we see a union of power and goodness, there is something not 
only to command our admiration, but to touch our hearts. 
And, in truth, we see in this an image of the Divine Nature. 
In the text both the power and the goodness of God are set 
forth." Then follows a special explanation of two words of 
the text, " helpeth " and " infirmities." Now here is an intro- 



338 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

duction consisting, first, of general principles of truth, and, 
secondly, of exegesis. So far as I can see, none of it is inap- 
propriate to the theme; but, as elaborated and illustrated in 
this manuscript, it comprises three eighths of the sermon. 
Think of a day that should require four hours and a half for 
dawning ! 

It is sometimes said in reply to such criticisms as these : " I 
have tried to abridge my introductions, and cannot ; it is im- 
possible to do them justice in less time." But how about all 
the rest of the sermon? Have you ample time left for that? 
If not, you are practising bad economy,— weakening the heart 
in order to strengthen a limb. Moreover, all that is necessary 
to the abridgment of your introductions is probably the nerve 
to do it. You have what seems to you — and perhaps is — a 
well-connected chain of preliminary thought, and are loth to 
break it. But to act on such a principle in the amplification 
would often make your sermons comparable in length to those 
of the most tireless Puritan preacher of the olden time. Sup- 
pose "justice" to your introduction should demand half an 
hour. As a matter of fact, have you not a somewhat indefinite 
time limit in mind, beyond which you do not purpose to allow 
the introduction to pass? Your simple duty is to reduce the 
limit. 

The introduction is not the place for a full and complete 
explanation. It is not the place for elaboration. It is not the 
place for the details of a narrative. Leave all these out, take 
a brief line of thought briefly expressed, and your mental 
movement will be firmer, more direct, more quickening to your 
audience. A vigorous brevity, — that is the desideratum; a 
steady and soldier-like tread, not the circling and hiding of a 
band of wild Indians. 

Wesley's introductions are models of simplicity and brevity. 
Their author evidently had but one object,— to bring his hearers 
into effective contact with the subject as soon as possible. 
Sometimes, indeed, his introductory words are extremely few, 



THE INTRODUCTION 339 

or even none at all. In his sermon, for example, on "The 
Way to the Kingdom" (Mark i. 15) he begins with the an- 
nouncement of his divisions : " These words naturally lead us 
to consider, first," etc. Note also the sermons on " Free 
Grace," "What is Man? " — and others. 

The introduction may be expanded into exorbitant propor- 
tions through fear of otherwise not finding enough material to 
make out the sermon. Here is a common fault of timid or 
unpractised sermonizers, though it is by no means confined to 
them. The sermon-writer feels, perhaps, that a hard piece of 
work is before him ; he is quite sure that as yet he has not 
ideas enough ; but his introductory thoughts develop encou- 
ragingly, and the temptation is to let them contribute too 
largely to the substance of the discourse. I once heard a 
sermon on the text, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness," etc. (John iii. 14), in which the preacher began 
with the creation, and gave a sketch of the principal events 
of Bible history from that time to the appearance of the fiery 
serpents in the wilderness. As he afterward informed me, it 
was only his third attempt at preaching ; but I hope you will 
never lead your congregation over so long and needless a 
pathway — even though it should be your first. 



LECTURE XIX 



THE CONCLUSION 



IF preaching is persuasion, there can be little danger of over- 
estimating the conclusion of the sermon ; for it is here that 
all the persuasive forces culminate. The conclusion is the 
supreme, concentrated effort to gain the hearer's will. A poem 
or a story ought to end well ; not abruptly or feebly, but in 
such a manner as to give unity and finish and to leave an 
agreeable impression on the mind. More important is it that 
the sermon shall end well. But this means, not that abruptness 
should be avoided, nor that the boldest and most striking 
thoughts should be reserved for the close ; but that the preach- 
ing shall conclude with an effective application. The introduc- 
tion is the skirmish which brings on the battle ; the conclusion 
is the final assault, hand to hand, which determines the issue. 

I. Its Necessity and its Difficulty. 

During the whole progress of the sermon there is going forth 
an influence upon the will of the hearer. At any rate, it should 
be so. For persuasion may be pervasive rather than explicit, 
indirect rather than direct. The very first sentence may touch 
some sleepy motive and at least disturb its dreams. The text 
simply as announced may go straight to the conscience. The 
hearer in such a case makes the application for himself. But 
in the conclusion this application is made by the preacher, 
immediately and with all the gathered momentum of the pre- 
ceding discourse. 

340 



THE CONCLUSION 341 

For, while this or that hearer, already awakened and sensi- 
tive, may apply the truth faithfully to his own case, people 
generally cannot be trusted to do so. Simon the Pharisee 
could not. And accordingly our Lord not only related the 
parable of the lender and his two debtors, but held forth its 
meaning, like a flame of fire, close to the conscience of this 
interested formalist whose guest He was : " Thou gavest Me 
no water. . . . Thou gavest Me no kiss. . . . My head with 
oil thou didst not anoint. ... Her sins, which are many, are 
forgiven ; for she loved much : but to whom little is forgiven, 
the same loveth little " (Luke vii. 44-47). So, likewise, it was 
when the apostle Peter said, " Let all the house of Israel 
therefore know assuredly, that God hath made Him both Lord 
and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified" — "when they heard 
this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and 
the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do ? " (Acts 

"■ 36, 37)- 

Would it not be better, however, that people should make 
their own application of the truth? Undoubtedly ; and, like- 
wise, it would be better that they should not need to be 
preached to at all. But neither of these two preferable things 
is a fact. Men, being such as they are, need preaching; and 
for the same reason, applicatory preaching. The time will 
come when no man will have to say to his neighbor, " Know 
thou the Lord " ; for all shall know Him, and His law shall be 
in every heart. But that millennial day is not now. 

People may listen with pleasure to a discussion, may feel 
some interest in the theory of religion ; but to lay bare their 
own consciences to the obligations that Christianity reveals is 
what they are commonly averse to. To do this for them is 
the consummation of preaching. " I have now made this 
subject as plain as I can ; I can do no more ; I leave it with 
you " : so the preacher sometimes informs his congregation. 
But in so doing he betrays a misconception of his office. All 
along with his teaching, and preeminently at its close, there 



342 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

should be urgency, entreaty, command, exhortation, persuasion 
to do the truth. " Preach the Word ; be instant in season, out 
of season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and 
teaching." Dr. Storrs tells of a fellow-student of his in the 
seminary who said : " I like to discuss subjects ; but I never 
know what to do with them after they are discussed. I can 
only leave them and go along." This may be good theological 
lecturing ; but is it preaching? It might be so regarded, if the 
ethical doctrine of Socrates were true,— that virtue is know- 
ledge, and accordingly a man who clearly sees what right con- 
duct is will be sure to practise it. But the fearful moral 
inertia and the evil passions of the heart are constantly im- 
pelling men, even in the clearest light of truth, to do wrong. 

" Oft have I lain awake at night and thought 
Whence came the evils of this mortal life ; 
And my creed is that not through lack of wit 
Men go astray, for most of them have sense 
Sufficient, but that we must look elsewhere. 
Discourse of reason tells us what is right, 
But we fall short in action." 

Not only when we see the good, but even when we would 
do it, evil is present with us. That is human experience and 
New Testament doctrine. The preacher, though his teachings 
were absolutely perfect, must be more than a teacher. He 
can be satisfied with nothing short of persuasion. Sometimes 
he calls upon men to respond openly and immediately, at the 
close of the sermon, to his appeals, — to commit themselves to 
the Christian life then and there. And always this urgency 
to immediate action is the true spirit of preaching. 

We may not find it an easy matter to instruct and convince 
men; but we shall find it harder to persuade them. A few 
days ago I asked one of our students to join a Sunday-school 
class. He was unwilling to promise. " Attend the school for 
six weeks," said I ; " and then, if you see any good reason for 



THE CONCLUSION 343 

quitting, do so." " There is no good reason now," he promptly- 
replied, " why I should not attend ; I know I ought to do it." 
Such every-day incidents are as significant as they are familiar. 

Unhappily the conclusion is precisely that part of the sermon 
which is in most danger of being neglected in the process of 
composition. Not in the delivery. Here,no doubt, the preacher 
does his best. But in many cases it is too late to do well, — 
no adequate preparation having been made. To open out 
the meaning of the text has interested him; reasoning and 
illustration have kept his mind in a state of pleasurable vivacity ; 
and now that all this is over, and the amplification completed, 
he is intellectually satisfied, and thinks only of quitting. 

Or perhaps Vinet has disclosed the secret of failure in 
many instances : " We are embarrassed at the end, since, on 
the one hand, it seems that we have said everything, and find 
ourselves, so to speak, in the presence of nothing, while, on 
the other hand, we feel the necessity of saying something more. 
We are fatigued, exhausted ; we dread a new effort, and we 
despatch the peroration with some commonplace exhortation 
or wish, with exclamations, with passages of Scripture negli- 
gently introduced." 

Or it may be that, hoping for a better emotive condition in 
the pulpit, we trust to that for the conclusion. The heightened 
glow of feeling, we think, will not only quicken the power of 
utterance, but also suggest the appropriate thoughts. But 
such a method is of very uncertain value. Walking to church 
one evening with a preacher of extraordinary ability, I heard 
from him the outline of the sermon he was about to deliver. 
The conclusion was lacking. " I will leave that," he said, " to 
be suggested at the time." I was struck with admiration of 
his genius. " This man's mind," I thought, " energizing 
through the discussion, will strike out a conclusion stronger, 
more impassioned, more impressive, than any that could be 
outlined beforehand." The result may have been exceptional ; 
it certainly was disappointing. Having developed the plan 



34i THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

with his usual analytic vigor and read}', sympathetic utterance, 
the preacher made a few ineffectual attempts to apply the sub- 
ject, and took his seat. No real and effective conclusion was 
" suggested at the time." I do not believe it was an excep- 
tional instance. I believe it illustrates what would prove to 
be the rule in the case not only of the generality of preachers, 
but even of the most highly gifted. 

Had I occasion to revise all my old sermons I should wish 
to give attention chiefly to their conclusions. Here the defects 
seem to be gravest, the missed opportunities most numerous. 
And I have almost always found the sermons handed me for 
criticism to be similarly defective. 

Now if in the act of delivering the sermon a more forcible 
conclusion than the one prepared be suggested, make use of it 
unhesitatingly. Hold yourself free to modify, or even to 
dismiss altogether, what you have already in hand. But have 
a conclusion; and let it be premeditated. It should be the 
freest part of the whole sermon ; but for this very reason it 
must be carefully prepared. 

II. Its Relation to the Whole Application. 

All application is not reserved for the conclusion of the 
discourse. Anywhere in the sermon, all through, there may 
be applicatory remarks. 

Accordingly, taking location as our principle of division, we 
may distinguish several varieties of application : 

i. When it is simply distributed more or less uniformly 
throughout the sermon. We frequently find it so in expository 
discourses. Not always; for a purely expository discussion 
may be followed by inferences from the whole subject. See, 
e.g., the conclusion of Wesley's sermon on "Temptation" 
(i Cor. x. 13): "This whole passage is fruitful of instruction. 
Some of the lessons which we may learn from it are, first," — 
and so on. On the other hand, topical and textual sermons 
sometimes employ only the distributed, or continuous, appli- 
cation. 



THE CONCLUSION 345 

Read the addresses of D. L. Moody. They are so astir 
with personal appeal from beginning to end that we can hardly 
say there is more of it in one part of the discourse than in 
another. " Am I in communion with my Creator or out of 
communion?" — "Do not think I am preaching to your 
neighbors, but remember I am trying to speak to you, to every 
one of you, as if you were alone" — "And can you give a 
reason for the hope that is in you? " — " Father, you have been 
a professed Christian for forty years ; where are your children 
to-night? " — " O prodigal, you may be wandering on the dark 
mountains of sin, but God wants you to come home " — 
" Oh, may God bring you to that decision," — such are the 
keen moral search-lights that flash out all along from intro- 
duction to conclusion. Brief statements of doctrine, Scripture 
expositions (always purposeful, though not always correct), 
lifelike description, numerous pertinent illustrations, and con- 
tinuous application, are the materials of these revival talks that 
have been so greatly blessed in turning men to God. 

A young man preached one Sunday morning in a London 
church, taking as his theme " The Great Day of Atonement " 
(Lev. xvi. 34) ; and thirty years afterward one of his hearers 
wrote : 

" I distinctly remember carrying away the inerasable im- 
pression of power that could not be explained and refused to 
be measured, power shown in lucid statement, vivid picturing, 
pungent appeal, and red-hot earnestness. . . . The Levitical 
sacrifices were as real as though offered but yesterday, and 
their meaning as clear and indisputable as the shining of the 
August sun ; and yet the center of interest is not in the Jewish 
offerings, but in the needs of the soul, and besides them the 
preacher sees nothing except Christ as God's sure remedy 
for sin. Not for a moment does he lose the gripe of his hearer. 
He is not so carried away by interest in his theme in any of 
its aspects as to forget the listening soul and the present God. 
He keeps touch with his audience. Every paragraph ends 



346 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

with a clause which says, ' He means me,' ' He is appealing to 
me,' 'He is praying for me.' " 

The young preacher was Charles H. Spurgeon ; and to the 
day of his death he continued to preach as he preached that 
morning. Read his sermons, and say whether they would 
have been improved, especially as spoken sermons, by omitting 
every " pungent appeal " except such as appear in the conclu- 
sion. 

The application in the homilies of Chrysostom illustrates 
this same spirit of insistent and irrepressible appeal. This 
great preacher — surpassed by none since his day — applies the 
Word as he expounds it all through the discourse. But not 
only so. His impassioned earnestness increases as he goes on ; 
so that his last exposition is almost always followed by an 
application both more extensive and more intensive than any 
that have gone before. It would seem as if his soul has now 
become so inflamed with holy zeal to send the truth home to 
men's hearts that he can give no more exegesis, but must 
spend the whole remaining time in exhortation. It may be 
some sin that he is exposing, — theater-going, drunkenness, 
covetousness, an unforgiving spirit ; or some Christian grace 
that he is commending, — kindness to the poor, Christian com- 
munion in the house of God, family religion ; whatever it may 
be, he is determined that this last truth at least shall make its 
due impression on the hearts and consciences of the people. 

In many cases, indeed, if the application of a truth be not 
made during the course of discussion, it will not be made at 
all. No place will be found for it in the conclusion. 

Besides, it is worth noting that the movement of feeling, 
when kept within proper limits, will react favorably upon 
thought. So the applicatory appeal, stirring the heart, will 
also stimulate the intellect of the hearer. It will make him 
more attentive and thoughtful. He is more susceptible to the 
ideas of the sermon for being made to feel their practical 
force. 



THE CONCLUSION 347 

2. When it is all reserved for the conclusion. In this case 
the application bears a general relation to the whole preceding 
discourse. It is the theme itself, as set forth in the divisions 
and their amplification, that is applied. Take, as an example, 
Dr. Deems's sermon entitled "The Sign of Jonas" (Matt. xii. 
39). Here the body of the discourse is an argument in proof 
of the resurrection of Christ ; and the application consists of 
the concluding inference that, if we fail to believe in the risen 
Redeemer, we shall be condemned before Him. Again, in 
his sermon on "The Seen and the Unseen" (2 Cor. iv. 17, 
18), Dr. Deems applies an explanatory discourse after a similar 
manner, — as follows: divisions, (1) The first contrast ; (2) The 
second contrast ; (3) The connection between them ; applica- 
tion, (1) Looking at the unseen will give us all the good there 
is in the things which are seen; (2) We get good out of the 
unpleasant things of life "while we look," etc. ; (3) It is thus 
that our afflictions develop the heroic element of our nature. 

3. When it is both distributed through the sermon and com- 
pact at the close. This may be regarded as the perfect appli- 
cation. Scripture truth is so full of applicatory forces, of that 
"strange movingness which is to be found nowhere else," 
that, in the hands of an earnest preacher, it does not readily 
lend itself to a merely intellectual discussion, with the practical 
assigned its own place and restricted thereto. The spirit of 
application will pervade the entire discourse, and make itself 
felt again and again. But this same spirit of earnestness that 
prompts continuous application may prompt the compact 
application of the whole truth at the close of the discussion. 
And when both these can be employed effectually, the appli- 
catory force of the sermon reaches its highest development. 
Examples are numerous and familiar. 

It must have been thus, if we may judge from his writings, 
that the Apostle of the Gentiles applied the Word in his 
preaching. In the Epistle to the Romans, e.g., now and then, 
in the progress of his great argument, he strikes home with 



348 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

exhortation and command upon the reader's will. "And 
reckonest thou this, O man, who judgest them that practice 
such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the 
judgment of God? Or despisest thou," etc. (ii. 3-5). See 
also vi. 12, viii. 12, 13, and others. The discussion closes 
with the sublime doxology, " O the depth of the riches both 
of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable 
are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out. . . . For 
of Him, and through Him, and unto Him, are all things. To 
Him be the glory forever. Amen " (xi. 33-36). But the 
epistle is not yet ended : " I beseech you therefore, brethren," 
continues the inspired preacher, "by the mercies of God, to 
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God " 
(xii. 1), — and on through four chapters we have the closing 
application of this most argumentative and profound of the 
Epistles. 

4. When the application of the last division is made to serve 
as the conclusion of the sermon. Shall we condemn this 
procedure on the ground that it substitutes, either inten- 
tionally or unintentionally, the conclusion of a division for 
that of the sermon taken as a whole? Not if the divisions 
be arranged in oratorical order; for, in this case, the last 
division is not simply a division : the ideas and the force 
of all the others have been more or less effectually poured 
into it. So it represents, in a manner, the whole discus- 
sion ; and it may develop a conclusion more forcible than 
one of a less specific character would be. Dr. William M. 
Taylor's sermon on "Providence" (Gen. 1. 20) is a good ex- 
ample. The divisions are the following: (1) The providence 
of God is His controlling superintendence ; (2) It is universal ; 

(3) It is carried on in harmony with what we call natural laws ; 

(4) It is carried on for moral and religious ends; (5) It con- 
templates the highest good of those who are on the side of holi- 
ness and truth. The arrangement is oratorical, or climactic ; 
and the concluding appeal grows out of the last division. 



THE CONCLUSION 349 

III. Its Materials and Forms. 

Each kind of material finds its own form ; hence the two 
things may be considered together. 

i . The first is recapitulation. Here we sum up in one continu- 
ous statement the chief points (which are usually the divisions) 
of the sermon ; so that the congregation may see them all in 
a single comprehensive glance, and feel their combined force. 
You have announced your theme, and have demonstrated its 
contents ; now you gather these contents together and show 
them in their unity, thus restating the theme with greater full- 
ness and effect. It is like placing side by side on your table 
the contents of a cabinet which you had first exhibited dis- 
tinctly one by one. 

It is no artificial process. It was not devised by a conven- 
tion of bookish and unpractical rhetoricians and imposed by 
them on public speakers. Quite natural to an oratorical 
temperament is the feeling expressed by John Summerfield, 
listening to the trial of causes in the courts of Dublin, in his 
boyhood : " Oh, how I should like to sum up! " Indeed you 
may hear recapitulation practised constantly in animated and 
earnest conversation. An opinion is stated, and reasons are 
given and elaborated one after another ; then, if the discussion 
has gone on for some time, they are repeated in their briefest 
form, as one whole body of proof. 

Besides, every preacher avails himself personally of its 
advantages in his preparation to preach. It is not enough 
to think out the plan of the sermon. In order to fix it in 
his memory, and to make sure of having it at command 
when needed, he must cast his eyes over the ground more 
rapidly, so as to have and to hold the main features of it 
in one comprehensive glance. Some such process may 
reasonably be expected to be helpful, in a similar manner, to 
the hearer. 

When the proposition of a sermon is announced, the ex- 
planation and proof of it are simply promised, — are floating 



350 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

vaguely in the future. The recapitulation is equivalent to the 
reannouncement of the proposition, not now as a promise, but 
with all the power of the sermon enforcing it. 

Still, recapitulation is by no means always required. It is 
specially suited to argumentative discourses ; and is least em- 
ployed in expository preaching. Many of our sermons are 
not elaborate enough to require it ; and to recapitulate in these 
cases may produce the effect of feeble repetition. 

Much, however, depends on how it is done. If with brevity 
and simplicity, recapitulation will rarely be obtrusive. Suppose, 
e.g., you have chosen as your theme some man or woman of the 
Bible,— say, King Ahaz (2 Chron. xxviii. 27). Your analysis 
of his character has brought out four personal qualities, which 
you have taken as your divisions and have set forth, one after 
another, in an expository and illustrative development. Here 
is nothing difficult to follow, — nothing argumentative or pro- 
found,— but the simplest and most rememberable sort of 
sermon. Nevertheless, it would not be a mere formality to 
sum up these four qualities in a single sentence at the close, — 
"Ahaz was frivolous, unbelieving, idolatrous, intractable." It 
would be the simple synthesis that might be expected to follow 
your analysis. 

There may be a progressive recapitulation. In the statement 
of a division the preceding division may be recalled : " Not 
only . . . but ..." Or, in connection with the announce- 
ment of the last division, all the preceding ones may be re- 
hearsed : "We have seen . . . and now, finally ..." 

Or we may recapitulate some special part of the amplifica- 
tion, and not the whole. E.g., in preaching on the text, 
" Lead us not into temptation," we may see fit to give a brief 
summation of the explanatory part of the sermon — because of 
the somewhat difficult distinctions that had to be made — be- 
fore advancing further. A good actual example may be 
found in Dr. South's sermon on " The Plea of a Tender Con- 
science" (1 Cor. viii. 12). The fine casuistic discussion of 



THE CONCLUSION 351 

the first division, " What a weak conscience is," he recapitu- 
lates as follows : 

" Now from these three things put together, I conceive, we 
may collect this full description of a weak conscience ; namely, 
that it is such a one as obliges a man to forbear any thing or 
action, from a suspicion that it is unlawful, or at least an 
ignorance that it is lawful ; which ignorance or suspicion was 
not caused or occasioned by his own will, but either by the 
natural weakness of his understanding, or the want of such 
means of knowledge as were absolutely necessary to inform 
him. 

"This description ought well to be observed and remembered 
in the several parts of it ; as being that which must give light 
into all the following particulars. 

" And thus much for the first thing proposed, which was to 
show what this weak conscience is," 



Note, also, that, while recapitulation may have applicatory 
force, its characteristic quality is not application. It is rather 
preparatory to the other forms of the conclusion, which are 
distinctively applicatory, persuasive, concluding. It cannot 
well stand alone. 

2. We notice another means that preachers employ to make 
the final application of their subjects to the mind and will of 
the hearer. They illustrate. For, as we have already seen, 
illustrations are not simply windows to let the light in, but, 
like actual windows, they admit both light and heat. They 
are intended to excite the imagination, the conscience, the 
desires, and thus realize the truth to the mind, and even deliver 
it on the will. Hence their applicatory power. A perfect ex- 
ample is the conclusion of our Lord's Sermon on the Mount. 

Often there is no more appropriate closing word— none 
which could more vividly re-present the great truth of the 
sermon, and set it astir in the conscience and the heart— than 
an illustrative example. See Dr. William M. Taylor's sermon 
entitled "Our Father" ("Limitations of Life, and Other 



352 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Sermons"), and Dr. T. L. Cuyler's on "The Miracle at the 
Gate Beautiful " (" Stirring up the Eagle's Nest, and Other 
Practical Discourses"). I will quote the closing application 
of the latter : 

" I seem to see the wretched race of man, crippled by sin 
and wasted by spiritual hunger, sitting by the gateway to a 
temple of heavenly purity which it is powerless of itself to 
enter. There sits depraved humanity, maimed, guilty, sin-sick, 
and perishing. ONE approaches, mighty to save. He comes 
with the kingliness of a God concealed in the lowly guise of 
the Son of man. He halts. He pities. He stoops and 
sweetly says, ' Look on ME.' 

" Stretching forth a hand pierced with the crucifying nail, 
He lifts the wretched object to its feet, exclaiming, ' Rise up 
and walk.' And as the grateful creature clings to its restorer, 
it beholds through its tears of joy that He is none other than 
the Son of God. O blessed and adorable Jesus, Thy cross, 
Thy cross is the ' Gate Beautiful ' of salvation, through which a 
redeemed race may enter into a temple not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens." 

Here is a picture of the imagination. But if you have at 
command a real incident, I should advise you to give it the 
preference. 

The abuse of this good method is to close with a mere 
explanatory or pleasing illustration. Why should we so con- 
stantly have to be reminded that what is needed in the con- 
clusion, above all other parts of the sermon, is not pleasur- 
able imagination, but practical power. Without this, it is 
true, the preacher may leave an agreeable impression on the 
minds of the people, as he ceases to speak ; but to please is 
not to persuade, and so in preaching to quit is not to con- 
clude. 

3. Another form of conclusion is the inferential. In the body 
of the sermon a certain truth has been set forth and estab- 
lished ; now, at the close, attention is called to certain other 
truths— usually practical lessons — which may be drawn from 



THE CONCLUSION 353 

it. These may be either inferences in the strict sense of the 
term, or simply remarks. In other words, they may result 
inevitably, as logical deductions, from the truth which has been 
established ; or they may arise as suggestions, under some 
natural and reasonable association of ideas. The conclusion 
of Phillips Brooks's sermon on " Standing before God " (" And 
I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God," Rev. xx. 
12) is the unexpected practical remark that we are standing 
before God now. The conclusion of Dr. Deems's sermon, al- 
ready referred to, "The Sign of Jonas" (Matt. xii. 39), is the 
familiar and easily anticipated inference that the refusal to be- 
lieve and obey Him who was thus declared to be the Son of God 
by the resurrection from the dead must be followed by condem- 
nation. 

It is hardly necessary to say which of these two forms of 
the inferential conclusion is inherently the more forcible, and, 
consequently, other things being equal, the preferable. The 
logical inference is clothed with all the force of a demonstra- 
ted truth. The suggested remark may have any imaginable 
degree of force in itself; but it stands alone, — no power of 
argument and of truth immediately behind it. 

It is worthy of note, also, that inferences may constitute the 
body of the discourse. In this case the text is briefly ex- 
plained, and a series of distinct lessons, more or less directly 
practical, are drawn from it ; and this is the whole sermon. 
A very simple method of sermonizing ; and one of the most 
interesting and useful. As an example of this method, take 
Dr. William M. Taylor's sermon (cited a few moments ago in 
another connection) on the fatherhood of God; in which, 
after a brief explanation of the sense in which God is the 
Father of all mankind, and the special sense in which He is 
the Father of regenerate souls, the preacher proposes to " pass 
in review a few of the present practical advantages " which the 
Christian derives from his filial relation to God,— viz. : it gives 
(1) new life to his devotions, (2) new joy to the discharge of 



354 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

duty, (3) new significance to trials, (4) new glory to his con- 
ceptions of the heavenly world. Another good example is 
Bishop Simpson's sermon on "Stephen's Life and Vision." 
Here, after two sentences of introduction, the first of the five 
lessons that make up the discourse is stated. 

Or, to take still another example, suppose the text to be 
1 Corinthians iv. 7, "And what hast thou that thou didst not 
receive?" The doctrine is that all our good is the gift of 
God. Now this theme might be developed in the way of 
exposition or of illustration. But, on the other hand, the 
particular object which the preacher has in view may lead him 
to omit all such amplification, and to begin at once to draw 
practical inferences from the text, — such, for example, as the 
following : If all we have is the gift of God, then it becomes 
us to cherish (1) a spirit of gratitude, (2) a spirit of humility, 
(3) a spirit of hopefulness, (4) a sense of accountability. In 
this case the whole sermon would be inferential. 

Now Scripture truth is so full of inferences, both doctrinal 
and directly practical, that the preacher constantly finds it 
necessary to make selection of the most suitable. And in this 
it will be well for him to give heed especially to these three 
points : 

(a) The principle of just enough. Announce no inference 
which, for lack of time, cannot be forcibly presented. Be 
willing to reject many. One is often sufficient. 

(b) The principle of unity. The materials of inference must 
be distinct from those of the body of the discourse, and yet 
in a line with them, — new, but not foreign. 

But it needs more particularly to be noted that the inferences 
must be in vital harmony with one another. Their differences 
should not amount to diversity. Good inferences constitute a 
single course of thought ; somewhat zigzag, perhaps, but 
keeping one general direction. This principle is disregarded 
in the following example : Text, Acts ix. 5 ; proposition, " The 
Oneness of Christ and His People"; conclusion, "We may 



THE CONCLUSION 355 

learn from this truth something of (i) the unspeakable love of 
Jesus, (2) the source of spiritual power, (3) the principle of 
Christian unity, (4) how we may minister to the Lord Jesus." 

(c) The principle of climax. The strongest part of the 
sermon should be the conclusion ; in like manner, the strongest 
inference in the conclusion should be the last. 

4. Still another form of conclusion, and that in which the 
whole conclusion naturally culminates, is the hortatory. The 
sermon is a distinctively persuasive address ; the conclusion is 
the distinctively persuasive part of the sermon. And now we 
have to learn that the exhortation is the distinctively persua- 
sive part of the conclusion. For what is it to exhort? It is 
(1) to take the same truth that has been presented in didactic 
or argumentative or illustrative form, and present it in the 
forms of feeling. But feeling in the speaker will excite, through 
the contagion of sympathy, corresponding feeling in the 
hearer ; and with this added to the feeling produced directly 
by the truth itself, the influence exerted on the hearer's will is 
decidedly more powerful. And (2) exhortation puts the truth 
into the form of willing. " Come," " Do this," " Give up your 
sins," " Choose," " Let us follow the Saviour," — these are en- 
treaties and commands, imperatives, will-words ; and their 
natural tendency, likewise, is (always, however, through the 
excitation of motives, — hope, fear, duty, love) to influence the 
will of the hearer. 

Let me illustrate the nature of exhortation by showing 
somewhat more fully what kinds of language it employs. 
Simple sentences may be classified as follows: declarative, 
interrogative, imperative, optative, exclamatory. The same 
truth substantially may be expressed in any one of these forms. 
But it is almost exclusively with the first form that we have 
been occupied thus far in our studies. This is the only logical 
form, the only kind of sentence that logic can deal with. It 
is with the declarative sentence that we explain, relate, argue, 
and illustrate : it is this sentence that we use in recapitulation 



356 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

and in inference. How about the other forms? They are 
forms of feeling or of willing, in contradistinction to this, 
which is a form of thought. And it is in them that the exhor- 
tation is given. So far as we use them in other parts of the 
sermon, it is for the expression of feeling or of willing rather 
than for the expression of thought. Exhortation claims them 
as peculiarly its own. 

Now if there be any one supreme preaching gift, it would 
seem to be this. Surely this at least is one of the very best 
gifts,— to be earnestly coveted and diligently improved. It 
is that with which the preacher sometimes begins his ministry. 
But though first to be exercised, it is often last to be perfected. 
In fact, it sometimes appears to wane, while the intellectual 
element of preaching rises into prominence. But why should 
not the two elements grow and increase together? It is de- 
plorable that the more truth the preacher has to teach, the less 
fervidly he should press it home ; that the more accurate and 
affluent his language, the less urgent it should become. 

The difficulties of exhortation arise out of the fact of its 
being so largely dependent on the feelings, which are not 
immediately under the control of the will. Ordinarily it is 
impossible to sustain a course of direct hortation very long. 
When forced, it becomes unreal. Its genuine, vital tone falls 
away, and the appeal degenerates into a harangue. But, on 
the other hand, this unbroken continuity is not necessary, nor 
even desirable. Exhortation is best interspersed with explana- 
tion, reasoning, illustration, description,— thrilling them all with 
its warmth and power, and persistently reappearing in its own 
proper forms. 

Besides, we must not forget that the feelings are under the 
control of the will indirectly. Thought and choice may be 
fixed voluntarily on their objects; and some measure of the 
appropriate feeling is their invariable accompaniment. Enter 
the pulpit with your whole mind penetrated and possessed with 
the theme presently to be preached, and there must be some 



THE CONCLUSION S57 

palpitation of feeling. Therefore do not say, " I cannot 
exhort." Every earnest preacher can, and does ; not, indeed, 
after some other man's manner, but according to his own gift 
and in his own way. 

" But I am not emotional." Nor is there any necessity that 
you should be. The feelings which it is essential for you to 
excite in your hearers are motives. Emotions, as we saw in 
our study of Persuasion, are of secondary importance. Cherish 
deep in your own heart Christian motives, stronger and 
stronger, as your life and ministry go on. Live by them every 
day. Be a good man ; do the commands of duty ; love your 
fellow-men ; desire their happiness and perfection, their eternal 
salvation ; keep near to God ; live in daily realization of your 
holy and blessed calling, as a Christian and a minister of 
Christ ; and you will be constrained to exhort men to repen- 
tance and perseverance in the way of life. Yours will be the 
spirit that makes the practical writings of a Baxter one con- 
stantly renewed and soul-stirring exhortation, as of a man far 
more deeply conscious of eternity than of the fading shows 
of time. Yours will be the same spirit that glowed and flamed 
through the great-hearted apostle's reiterated appeals : — 
" Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. 
. . . For the love of Christ constraineth us. . . . We beseech 
you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God. . . . We 
entreat also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. 
. . . Behold, now is the day of salvation. . . . Our mouth is 
open unto you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged. ... Be 
not unequally yoked with unbelievers : for what fellowship 
have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath 
light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with 
Belial? or what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever? " 
(2 Cor. v., vi.) 



LECTURE XX 

LITERARY FORM 

IT is vain to belittle style. The man who professes to care 
only for what is said, and not in the least for the manner 
in which it is said, wishes to express his extraordinary pref- 
erence so as to have it understood and appreciated ; and this 
is to wish a certain style of expression. To be consistent, such 
a man must doom himself to perpetual silence. All acts are 
done more or less perfectly ; and style, or literary form, is 
simply the more or less perfect way in which we perform the 
act of verbal communication. Even the drayman unloading 
crockery at the store door is expected to do it right, or, as we 
sometimes say, in good style : much more is the right manner 
of speech obligatory upon the speaker. There is always a how 
as well as a what; and it is a thoughtless or a narrow mind 
that loses sight of either. 

Nothing is easier than to show the different effects produced 
by different forms of expression. Take as an example the first 
sentence of the Pilgrim's Progress : " As I walked through 
the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where 
was a den, and laid me down in that place to sleep." Some 
writers would have said : " I was once incarcerated in Bedford 
jail " ; others, perhaps : "As I was pursuing my way through 
the difficulties and dangers of this present state of existence, 
I discovered a certain locality in which was a den, and, pros- 
trating myself on the ground, lapsed into a profound slumber " ; 
358 



LITERARY FORM 359 

others, again, might have said : " I lighted on a certain place 
where was a den, and laid me down in that place to sleep, as 
I walked through the wilderness of this world." Now I pass 
no opinion upon the relative merits of these sentences. I wish 
only to note the different impressions produced by them. 

Several aspects of the subject invite attention : 

I. The Importance of Attention to Style. 

It seems to be supposed by some that a good style cannot 
be acquired, but that, if it come at all, it will come of itself, 
as the heart beats or the nerves vibrate; that the effort to 
improve one's style is likely to result in spoiling it ; that, so far 
as the use of our mother-tongue is concerned, we had better 
be unembarrassed by " that cobweb of the brain, learning " ; 
that the John Bunyans of literature write all the better because 
they are not rhetoricians and have received no literary culture. 
Are we required, then, to believe that the ignorant express them- 
selves better than the intelligent? that they take a better part in 
conversation, write better, speak better before an audience? 

People do not succeed as a matter of course, in saying 
what they wish to say. Recently I was called on to visit a 
poor woman upon her death-bed. Her sister, who lived at a 
distance, entered the room ; and in order to soothe the dying 
woman's agitation at the unexpected meeting, said in a tender 
tone: "Don't be frightened, sister." Was that a fitly spoken 
word? Would not a cultivated woman probably have had 
an apter word at command ? In like manner does the public 
speaker err many times through lack of intelligence and ac- 
quired skill in the use of language. 

As to glorious John Bunyan, who was born in about the 
same state of life as the two women I have just spoken of, we 
may be sure that he had to learn to write, no less than to mend 
his pots and kettles. Look at the man and his schooling, — 
his extraordinary genius, his constant intercourse with plain- 
spoken people in English villages and in the army, his varied 
struggles, adventures, and sufferings, his thrilling religious 



3 GO THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

experience, his perfect sincerity, his wide sympathy and human 
kindliness, his sweet and catholic Christian spirit, his predomi- 
nant desire to do good, his perpetual preaching and writing, 
his twelve years' absorption of the English Bible in Bedford 
jail. Is this the man whose literary success is to make us 
careless about the improvement of our literary gift? More- 
over, one should read Bunyan's " Sermons," and should at- 
tempt to read his " Solomon's Temple Spiritualized," before 
deciding whether a competent teacher of rhetoric might not 
have done even " the most popular religious writer in the 
English language " some needful service. 

" But may we not expect a good style to come as the result 
of general knowledge and mental growth?" Undoubtedly, 
in the same sense in which we may expect that the ability 
to expound a passage of Scripture, to build up an argument, 
to analyze a character, or to think out a plan of discourse 
will increase as a result of general knowledge and culture. 
Instruct and strengthen the powers of the mind, and it can do 
anything better. But it is equally true that a special aptitude 
is best acquired by efforts wisely directed to that particular 
end. We were not born with a knowledge of English, nor of 
a single one of its hundred thousand words. There is no 
" 7/wf/icr-tongne." Had we been stolen away in infancy by 
the Arabs, we should readily have come to express our desires 
in Arabic, and have been repelled by the barbarous jargon of 
any English stranger that chanced to cross our path. What 
we know of our vernacular we have learned, much of it still 
remaining practically a foreign tongue to us all ; and that 
mastery of English, that ready command of its words and 
phrases, which we desire, will be ours only as an acquisition 
for which the inevitable price of patient and well-directed 
labor must be paid. 

II. The All=comprehensive Quality of Style. 

Remembering that the sole office of speech is mental com- 
munication, the making known of the speaker's mental state 



LITERARY FORM 361 

to others, we may say that the one all-inclusive quality of 
style is expressiveness. If before our friend spoke or wrote, 
we could know exactly what was in his mind, any word from 
him would be useless. This ideally perfect knowledge no 
language can convey ; but in proportion as it is conveyed, the 
language is perfect. What excellence could be added to a 
completely expressive style? Such a style would, of course, 
be clear — when the idea was clear in the speaker's own mind. 
But would it also be forceful or beautiful? Unquestionably 
so, when there was force or beauty in the speaker's mind. For 
the office of speech is to communicate not only ideas, but 
feelings and energy, — in brief, the whole mental state. Take 
as an example the sentence already quoted from the Pilgrim's 
Progress. Why does Bunyan employ the somewhat "sus- 
pended" sentence, instead of the very "loose" one in which 
the same idea might have been expressed? Because the sus- 
pended sentence is more forcible. It strikes a harder blow. 
But this means that it expresses more of the writer's energy. 
The force no less than the idea is in the writer ; the sentence 
conveys both to the reader. 

So, likewise, a beautiful style is one that conveys not simply 
the idea, but also the sense of beauty with which it is accom- 
panied. Hence the writer employs rhythm, both in prose and 
poetry, to express that beautiful thing, the feeling of melody ; 
and chooses apt descriptive or figurative words to express 
those beautiful images of the imagination which are the fre- 
quent forms of our thought. The first stanza of poetry that 
comes to mind shall serve as an illustration : 

"And when the morn came, dim and sad, 
And chill with early showers, 
Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 
Another morn than ours." 

ISLow would it not have been equally appropriate to say : 
"At daybreak she died"? It would have been more appro- 



362 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

priate if such an assertion represented the whole state of the 
author's mind ; but if he wished, as in fact he did, to express 
likewise his imaginative sense of harmony between the chill, 
uncertain morning and the sad fact of untimely death, and to 
confess his faith that from the death-bed about which all night 
long the broken-hearted watchers were waiting and praying, a 
lovely soul had passed into the heavenly life, — with this feeling 
and purpose in his mind, the bare record of the fact of death 
would have been extremely inexpressive. 

The notion that style is an extra, a something added to 
expression, a toothsome dessert after the meal, is a delusion 
and a snare. Pathos, humor, wit, beauty, unity, force, ideas, 
are no more in the language we use than in the inkstand 
or the vocal cords ; and they can no more be found outside 
the mind than created out of nothing. They exist, if at all, in 
us ; they are states of the soul ; and language is only a vast 
and ordered multitude of physical symbols, mostly arbitrary, 
often misleading, and always inadequate, by which communi- 
cation has been established between soul and soul. It enables 
us to "express ourselves." My words can have no further 
significance than that they waken in some other soul a state 
corresponding to my own. Longinus has said, in his famous 
monograph, that sublimity of language "is an echo of the 
inward greatness of the soul." But he might have made a 
similar remark concerning beauty, or energy, or any other 
property of style, primary or secondary, that he might have 
chosen to discuss. If it be not the echo of some quality or 
condition of the writer's own mind, it is at least the echo of 
an echo. 

To illustrate further. It might be charged as a defect upon 
some piece of writing that it had not enough "ands," "there- 
fores," " notwithstandings," and such like connectives. But 
the meaning of the criticism would be, either that the writer 
himself did not see clearly the various relations of thought 
which these words are used to represent, or that he did not 



LITERARY FORM 363 

express enough of them to his reader. It could hardly be 
meant that the style would be improved by gathering up a 
handful of connectives and scattering them at random over 
the piece. " Express the relations of your thought," is what 
we should say to the writer. Or the objection might be made 
to a piece of writing that it was lacking in beauty. But when 
we seek the source of this defect we find that the writer either 
was deficient in the esthetic imagination, or for some reason 
did not express the pleasing forms and colors in which the 
succession of ideas appeared to his own mind. And the 
remedy would certainly not be to gather flowers of language 
from foreign sources and stick them in among his own words, 
— the dead among the living. So far as he is able to see and 
to give expression to the beauty of thought, he may command 
a beautiful literary form ; but no further. So with every 
quality of style ; it is not expression plus some excellence, but 
expression pure and simple. 

The principle applies not only to words and constructions, 
but even to marks of punctuation. These help to express the 
movements, pauses, and transitions of thought. Why do we 
write in sentences, beginning each with a capital letter and 
closing it with a period,— using dashes, commas, etc., between 
the two extremes? Because we think in that way ; not on a 
dead level, but rising and falling; not uninterruptedly, but 
brokenly, work and rest, a movement and a pause. Primitive 
languages were destitute of such marks, not because the writers 
did their thinking in a different manner from ours (for of course 
they did not), but because these early writers had not learned 
to express their mental movements as perfectly as we express 
ours. Punctuation, then, with its corresponding pauses and 
inflections in speech, is a part of language ; and language be- 
comes perfect in proportion as it fulfils its one sole office of 
expression. 

III. Means of Developing the Power of Expression. 

Every public speaker has this power to begin with. Not, 



364 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

indeed, by nature, as every one has memory or reasoning 
power or natural affection ; but as an acquisition of early child- 
hood. The capacity and the impulse are innate, beyond ques- 
tion. The baby has them ; but the few swift years between 
babyhood and oratorical maturity mark an incalculable en- 
largement of ability and resources. 

What are some of the conditions and means of this develop- 
ment ? 

i. The general development of the man. The manner of 
speech, as well as the subject-matter, is favorably affected by 
all enlargement of the sphere of knowledge and affection, by 
all holding of the will to the supreme Christian purpose, even 
by all increase of physical vigor. 

I do not think we shall ever emphasize too strongly the 
principle that the act is but the expression of the person. But 
there are conditions more special : 

2. Conversation. Here is an ever-present opportunity. 
Almost by this means alone the generality of persons acquire 
their command of language, such as it is. To be a good con- 
verser promises much for literary power. Talk so as to in- 
terest those with whom you are talking. Reject all coarse or 
ungrammatical expressions, and all slang ; be sparing of 
" dictionary words " ; but indulge freely your liking for apt 
and idiomatic English. Then, at the study-table and before 
the audience, you will not be bothered by the intrusion of 
familiar but inadmissible words. The language that comes 
of itself will be that which is best suited to your purpose. 

I used to have a boyish fancy for the man whose tongue 
was loosed only when he began to preach ; but such an ideal 
did me no good, either in the pulpit or out of it. If I were 
asked now which gift is to be the more earnestly coveted, that 
of effective speech to individuals, or that of effective public 
speech, I should not know how to decide between the two. 
But there is no conflict ; each will help the other. How can 
it be otherwise, when the best public speech is simply public 



LITERARY FORM 365 

talking? If we had heard the conversation of such a man as 
Frederick Robertson— bright, serious, deep, imaginative, "with 
all the variety of a great stream, quick, rushing, and passionate 
when his wrath was awakened against evil" — we should not 
have been surprised to hear him talk even in his wondrous 
way in the pulpit. 

3. Familia?ity with the laws and usages of one's own lan- 
guage. Not that the preacher need aspire to become a scholar 
in English. That is not his calling ; and even if it were, he 
would not find his philology of much service in improving his 
style. But the ability to analyze any sentence that may be 
given him, and to see at once, as if by intuition, whether it be 
well or ill constructed, will help him no little in putting his 
own words together. Grammar and rhetoric are disparaged 
by men of two classes only : by the man who knows nothing 
about them, and by the man who, with their aid, has advanced 
(or thinks he has) beyond the need of them, and is now un- 
grateful enough to speak lightly of his former servants. 

4. Reading. Not reading merely or chiefly for the sake of 
the style. I should think this a poor sort of task-work. Read 
for the subject ; but note incidentally the manner of expression, 
so as to get a hold upon words and constructions that hereto- 
fore you have not had at command, and thus enlarge your 
own vocabulary and power of speech. 

Moreover, bear in mind the inevitable formative influence 
which your author's style will tend to exert, for good or evil, 
upon your own ; and accept or reject it accordingly. In spite 
of your efforts, however, this good or evil influence will affect 
you to some extent : therefore do not read an indifferently 
written book or newspaper — when it can be avoided. Dr. 
Stalker says that in going over one of his old sermons he can 
almost tell whether or not he was reading good literature during 
the time of its composition. But especially are we to remember 
that our question must always be, not whether the critic would 
regard the piece of writing as "literature," but whether its 



366 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

literary form would be suitable for the preaching of the Gospel 
to our congregations. Supposing, for example, you could 
make the style of Dr. Isaac Barrow or Dr. Chalmers or Canon 
Mozley, or even Robert Hall, entirely your own, would it be 
expedient to do so? By no means. It is from the pulpits of 
the present generation— from those of them that best succeed 
in reaching the popular mind — that we must learn how to win 
attention and to communicate Christian truth. We are sent 
to preach the Gospel to. men in their own tongue in which 
they were born. 

The ministerial student at college, like other college students, 
is likely to pick up a bookish style. Its tendency is to disap- 
pear and give place to nature and simplicity before his gradua- 
tion, though sometimes it cleaves to him through life. But 
still greater is the danger that besets the uneducated young 
preacher when he begins to make acquaintance with books. 
For why should not this young man, as well as his brother at 
college, imagine that the literary rather than the talking style 
is the thing he wants? And who is at hand from day to day 
to laugh him out of his stilted feebleness? We have all met 
with this perverted young preacher who cannot use the lan- 
guage of the people in the pulpit ; who never " hides his face," 
but always " conceals his countenance," never " gives a cau- 
tion," but always "utters an uncompromising caveat," never 
condescends to speak against " false views," but mercilessly 
exposes the various pestilential forms of " pseudo-philosophy" ; 
who delights in such words as " eliminate," " coordinate," 
"potentiality," "duality," "antithesis," and the like, which 
mean nothing to most of his hearers and often very little to 
himself. Do not let us tread in his stately steps. Still we 
must read not less, but more and more. 

5. Constant writing and speaking. The latter you will have 
to do ; the former it will be very unwise to neglect. For, after 
all, the indispensable condition of learning to use any instru- 
ment well is to keep using it the best we can. Dr. Phelps has 



LITERARY FORM 367 

spoken, in this connection, of his unbounded admiration for 
mechanical dexterity : " I stand in awe of a carpenter, a tailor, 
a machinist, a locksmith, a sailor, who are well to do at their 
trades. They manipulate their work with such marvelous 
adroitness that to me it is a miracle. They are all experts 
from another world than mine. Their arms, fingers, legs, feet, 
eyes seem inspired." But when we venture to ask these clever 
workmen the secret of their skill and success, the answer from 
them all is the same : " It comes through practice." May we 
expect to perfect ourselves otherwise in the higher art of speech? 

The mechanical expert, however, is not altogether right in 
his answer : the skill by which he is distinguished has not been 
acquired by practice alone. Nor will yours be. For the 
probability is that, as a young speaker, you have some bad 
tendencies, or even some bad habits; and mere constant 
writing and speaking will not correct these, but will probably 
have exactly the opposite effect. Cicero tells us that certain 
young orators of his day were misled by the saying that " men 
by speaking succeed in becoming speakers," — forgetting that 
it is also said with equal truth that "men by speaking badly 
make sure of becoming bad speakers." Is it not so in con- 
versation? If much talking sufficed to develop good talking, 
how familiar a personage the fine conversationist would be! 
Speech, the orator's great instrument, must be used with wide- 
awake intelligence, and this use of it continually repeated. 

6. A full mind. Have more than enough to say. Not 
otherwise can there be in your words that combination of ease 
and energy, of gentleness and strength, which marks the master 
of speech. There must be fullness of thought pressing for 
utterance. Ideas dragged forth from a half-empty mind can 
produce but a feeble impression. The little that is said will 
not be well said. And when the attempt is made — by no 
means an unheard-of experiment — to express more than one 
has to say, feebleness will be attenuated into vagueness or 
swollen into bombast. Such labor of tongue or pen, spent on 



368 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

an impossible object, is energy thrown away. The school-boy 
was right who began the composition on which he had ex- 
pended time and toil in vain, with the reflection : " It is rather 
difficult and pretty impossible to convey unto others those 
ideas of which you are not yourself possessed of." But when 
a man is ready to say with Arnold of Rugby, " I must write 
or die," his word will be with power. Eloquence is a brimful 
cup. 

IV. The True Mental Attitude in the Act of Compo- 
sition. 

Let us now suppose the theme to have been selected, the 
greater part of the materials gathered, and the time of ut- 
te ance to be at hand. The emergency is upon us ; either 
with tongue or pen, we must speak our mind. No time now 
to consider whether we can or not ; whatever our indisposition 
or incompetency, it must be done. What, then, shall be our 
mental attitude, in order to command an effective mode of 
expression ? 

I will say this : In public speaking, as we shall see later, 
the whole energy of the mind must be given to the subject, the 
audience, and the object. The speaker is scarcely to notice the 
words and constructions he is using. Any consciousness of 
these which he may allow himself must be quite subordinate 
to the main process of delivery. He is not to criticise his 
style, nor to admire it, even for a moment. He may not 
pause to correct mistakes, unless they be glaring, or be such 
as may be rectified with a word, — as one would brush aside a 
wasp or a fly, and hardly know that he had done it. 

Similarly in the first writing of a sermon, let the style be 
what it will, without special thought or care. Fix your mind 
on the subject (for how otherwise can you find anything to 
write?) ; on the audience, always expressing yourself to them, 
as in direct address, and not as to a reader ; on the object, 
asking yourself, " What am I saying this for? When my end is 
gained, what will have been gained? " 



LITERARY FORM 369 

Write rapidly, somewhat as you would have to speak to an 
audience ; making no unnecessary pauses ; not occupying three 
hours, just because you have them, with work that might be 
done in half an hour ; pressing right on, though with ill-jointed 
sentences and inaccurate expressions, till you shall have set 
down substantially what you have to say. Do not run the 
risk of losing a whole train of thought in the endeavor to catch 
some elusive word. Do not stop your plow to kill a mouse. 

But now appears an opportunity, and with it, as always, an 
obligation, peculiar to the study. You can revise your com- 
position. You can go over it again and again, to lop off 
excrescences, to simplify labored passages, to strengthen weak 
constructions, to complete incomplete sentences and recast 
such as are hopelessly mixed. 

What lesson may we find in the following extract from a 
lately published letter of Cardinal Newman's ? "I write, 
I write again ; I write a third time in the course of six 
months. Then I take the third; I literally fill the paper 
with corrections, so that another person could not read it. I 
then write it out fair for the printer. I put it by; I take it 
up ; I begin to correct again ; it will not do. Alterations 
multiply, pages are rewritten, little lines sneak in and crawl 
about. The whole page is disfigured ; I write again ; I cannot 
count how many times this process is repeated." One thing 
is certain : it is the confession of a master of the English 
tongue. 

Is this an artificial process? Yes; if it be artificial in a 
child just learning the rudiments of the art of speech to try 
again when he has failed in the first effort ; if it be artificial in 
a penman to cancel and rewrite an illegible word ; if it be 
artificial in a blacksmith to keep putting his iron into the fire 
and hammering it on the anvil till it takes the desired shape : 
quite artificial in the sense in which it is so for a man to be 
an artificer. If we be so constituted as to be able to do at 
once and perfectly whatever we can do at all, this process of 



370 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

revising our literary compositions is thoroughly unnatural. 
Otherwise, to retouch and perfect what has been written is no 
less accordant with the dictates of nature than is any other 
use of the pen. 

Observe that while the attention is given chiefly, in this 
process of revision, to the literary form, the whole work is done 
with continual reference to the audience and the object. 

Here, for a season at least, is constantly recurring drudgery 
and toil ; but here also is the secret of a good literary style, — 
in this same humble, painstaking, and persistent toil. Nor 
will the wise and true-hearted preacher hesitate. " He pon- 
dered, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The 
Preacher sought to find out acceptable words " (margin, ivords 
of delight) (Eccl. xii. 9, 10). 



LECTURE XXI 

LITERARY FORM — EFFECTS OF THE MENTAL ATTITUDE 

WHAT may we expect from the right mental attitude in 
the composition of the sermon ? What elements of power 
will it impart to speech? It is this inquiry on the subject of 
literary form that now remains for consideration. 

i. It will insure naturalness. It is in the order of nature, 
and in no other. For, inasmuch as speech is expressive, not 
introspective or self-centered, to lose all thought of self and of 
manner for its own sake, and to fix the mind on subject, audi- 
ence, and object, is to make ready for using speech for its 
proper purpose. Denying self, you will gain your true self, — 
every faculty at work according to the law of its own nature. 
There will be no fanciful or ambitious dallying with words ; 
but your style, whatever may be its prevailing characteristics, 
— figurative or literal, plain or elegant, passionate or calm, 
sententious or flowing,— will have in it your peculiar elements 
of power. It will be, not some great speaker's, not any other's, 
but your own. Whether strong or weak, your mind will be a 
fountain,— a chalybeate spring, not an artificial mixture of 
rain-water and iron. 

2. It will promote clearness. For surely the communication 
of one's state of mind on a certain subject to an audience in- 
volves the making of one's self understood. 

Compare vocal music and speech. You are listening to a 
sweet singer whose heart is in his song; and though not a 
371 



372 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

word of it all should be intelligible, yet your own heart is 
stirred. True, if the sentiment as well as the sounds were 
making itself known, the pleasure would be decidedly greater ; 
but even without the sentiment much of the intended effect is 
realized. Because music is designed to reach the imagination 
and the heart chiefly through the sensuous nature. But with 
oratory it is not so. Oratory is designed to reach the heart 
and the will chiefly through the intellect. Accordingly, an 
address that cannot be understood must yield a poor result. 
Not absolutely nothing ; for there is a wonderful music even 
in the speaking voice which of itself may bring the hearer's 
soul into some sort of contact with the speaker's. When 
Francis d'Assisi sent out his preachers, he bade them go, as 
he himself went, even to men of other lands ; for he felt that 
somehow the substance and spirit of their message would make 
itself felt. In like manner, when Bernard of Clairvaux preached 
in Germany the Second Crusade, the people, before the inter- 
preters could translate his language, hastened to embrace the 
cause which he advocated with such passionate sincerity. 
Here is a crumb of comfort for the unintelligible preacher. 
Let him feel his message and deliver it with enthusiasm ; and 
though his hearers cannot understand him, it is possible for 
them to catch the contagion of his godly earnestness and zeal. 
But this is not really to "preach the Word " : it is music rather 
than eloquence. 

I have heard a young preacher say, " I use good English ; 
and if the people do not understand me, it is their own fault." 
Is that the right position to take? If so, why preach at all ? 
Why not say, " The people know they ought to be Christians ; 
if they are not, it is their own fault, and I shall say nothing to 
them on the subject"? We are sent to help them in their 
weakness, and " constrain them to come in." Therefore we 
must use such "English" that not only the willing and atten- 
tive, but the inattentive also, may get hold of our meaning. 

The determination to be intelligible will keep your preaching 



LITERARY FORM— THE MENTAL ATTITUDE 373 

free from technical terms. These are little else than blotches ; 
often they mean no more to the people than so many ink-spots 
on the written page. Hence the preacher who insists on using 
the language of the schools must ascribe any lack of interest 
on the part of the congregation to some other cause than in- 
difference to the Gospel. Would he himself be interested in 
listening to language which he did not understand, on any 
subject whatever? Suppose that he went to hear a popular 
address on some health topic, and the lecturer proved to be a 
physiological pedant who discoursed on the vitiation of the air 
by carbon dioxid, and the certainty of anemia in case a suffi- 
cient quantity of oxygen is not appropriated by the hemoglobin 
of the red blood-corpuscles : would that preacher be found in 
the learned physiologist's audience on the next occasion? 
Yet the truths of religion are sometimes explained from our 
pulpits in language which conveys no more meaning to the 
majority of hearers than do the technics of chemistry and 
biology. 

Sometimes the truly great preachers so misjudge their audi- 
ences as to err at this point. A singular instance is furnished 
in the published sketch of a sermon by the eloquent and la- 
mented Bishop Marvin. The sermon begins : " Are ideas 
innate ? I preach to the common people as well as to meta- 
physicians ; and as there are a great many more of the former 
than of the latter class, I may be said to preach to them chiefly. 
I shall, therefore, not attempt to use the word ideas in any 
other than what I suppose to be the meaning received by 
people of average intelligence. I mean by it the concept of 
things formed in the mind." 

Now the expression " the concept of things formed in the 
mind " would be equally objectionable, I should think, to 
metaphysicians and to the rest of the world. But what con- 
ceivable object of preaching to "people of average intelli- 
gence " could be subserved by such a word as the newly 
invented psychological term concept, even if accurately em- 



374 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ployed? A professor of homiletics, Dr. Thomas H. Skin- 
ner, is reported to have said, in an address to children : 
" Children, I propose to give you on the present occasion an 
epitome of the life of St. Paul. Perhaps some of you are too 
young to know what the word epitome means. Epitome, 
children, is in its significance synonymous with synopsis" 
This was certainly explaining the unknown by the unknown, 
if not by the more unknown ; but to define an " idea " to 
people of average intelligence as a " concept " is to explain 
the well known by the unknown. 

Further on in the same discourse we have the following 
passage: "Through contact with the objective, ideas are 
evolved into consciousness ; and ideas, which are the concepts 
of things, constitute the condition of all thinking. Thus, by 
the active power of thought, from primary ideas we go on to 
all combinations of them, and all those resultant conditions, 
active and passive, which constitute the highest intellection ; 
for it is not the mere receptivity of the objective which char- 
acterizes our being, but, in addition to this, a personal force 
which responds to the touch of outward things, and in the 
rebound goes on to active achievement, so that by a repro- 
ductive power it multiplies and yields an almost infinite progeny 
from the impregnating presence of the objective." I could 
heartily wish that you might become such preachers as Marvin 
in head, heart, and tongue ; but with his " correlatives " and 
"a prions" and "subjectivity of the objective " and "reciprocal 
action of the subjective and objective " and his " postulates " 
(which turn out to be not postulates at all, but simply state- 
ments or propositions), — with all such terms faithfully omitted. 

It would seem that a fairly competent Christian preacher 
ought to show as much wisdom in this matter as any pre- 
Christian orator and rhetorician. Yet the elegant Cicero 
could see that " the whole art of speaking is concerned with 
common usage and the custom and the language of all men, so 
that while in other things that is most excellent which is most 



LITERARY FORM- THE MENTAL ATTITUDE 375 

remote from the knowledge and understanding of the illiterate, 
it is in speaking even the greatest of faults to vary from the 
ordinary language and the practice sanctioned by universal 
reason." Where, then, is the differing circumstance which 
makes that familiar and intelligible speech that was demanded 
by the Roman forum an unsuitable thing for the Christian 
congregation? 

Again, elaborate figures of speech and all showiness of style 
produce confusion of mind by perverting attention to them- 
selves. Why will some preachers imagine the sunset cloud, 
because of the gorgeous light on its edges, to be the proper 
emblem of pulpit diction ? or suppose that under any or- 
dinary circumstances they can make a long apostrophe or 
simile effective in a sermon? Leave out all such inept splen- 
dor, no matter how great an expenditure of labor it may have 
cost you. 

If, then, it be asked what amount of ornament a preacher 
may properly bestow upon his style, the answer is, The same 
that he would bestow upon his handwriting, — none whatever. 
In the case not only of the sermon, but of all literature, the 
word ornament, when applied to a true style, is a misnomer. 
Ornament is something tacked on ; style, as we have seen, is 
expression, — the form of a substance, the manifestation of an 
inner life. It is the grain of the wood made visible; not 
veneering, not graining. Ornament tries to win admiration 
for itself ; a true style communicates the subject. What do 
you wish to put the people in possession of, the truth or your 
manner of presenting it ? If the former, then the style must 
not be decorated, but simply expressive. 

True, a certain flashiness of language, which bears about 
the same relation to clearness as sheet-lightning to the sunrise, 
will be regarded by some hearers as admirable. But it leaves 
them uninstructed, all the same. I remember to have heard 
a friend of mine extolling in extravagant terms a sermon to 
which he had listened the Sunday before, from that unique 



376 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

and brilliant genius, William E. Munsey. " Such a way of 
presenting the truth," he exclaimed, " I never heard." " What 
was the subject? " I ventured to ask. He could not recall it. 
" What was the general line of thought? " He didn't know. 
" Tell me, then, a single thing that he said, from beginning to 
end." He could tell nothing, not a word ; but repeated once 
more his rapturous opinion of the preacher's unprecedented 
manner of presenting the truth. My friend belonged to the 
same class of hearers as the Scotch servant-woman who said 
of De Quincey — being quite overcome with admiration of his 
conversational powers— that he "would mak' a gran' preacher," 
though she was of opinion that " a hantle of the folk wouldna' 
ken what he was driving at." 

" But suppose a man to be a ' unique and brilliant genius,' 
—or at least suppose him to have a poetic imagination, — so 
that his thoughts naturally take the form of lovely or splendid 
images: shall he not be allowed to embellish his style?" 
Why, if it were desirable in any case, he of all men would be 
least in need of it. His own natural style, so far as he is able 
to tell what he sees and feels, will be very beautiful ; for it will 
express the beautiful sentiments of his soul. Where would 
you have him display his ornaments? Which of the "lilies" 
of his mind should you like him to " paint " before showing it? 

Sometimes, indeed, these fine imaginative minds are unwise 
enough to attempt ornamentation. And the result is that 
their grandeur becomes grandiose, and their sublime degener- 
ates into the sublime of nonsense. This is their peculiar 
danger; just as the argumentative preacher is in danger of 
becoming sophistical, and the exhorter may find it necessary 
to repress a tendency to rant. 

Now let me insist that I would not have you to depreciate 
beauty of language ; nor to take the literary ascetic as your 
type of the literary man ; nor to say within yourself, " Ah, 
well, inasmuch as I have not a fruitful fancy, I at least must 
be content with plain and unattractive forms of speech." Who 



LITERARY FORM— THE MENTAL ATTITUDE 377 

could hold up such ideals with an open Bible in his hand? 
But what I do most earnestly desire is to have you take that 
mental attitude in which, and only in which, real, purposeful, 
luminous rhetorical beauty may be expected to appear. 

One more caution. A man's style may express a dispro- 
portionate amount of real beauty, with reference to the ends 
of oratory. The beautiful is one aspect of the true, but one 
only. It is that which charms the imagination, but not that 
which instructs the understanding or quickens the conscience. 
So a sermon may be too beautiful; not absolutely, but rela- 
tively to its amount of instruction or argument or appeal. 
Poetry has as good a right to exist as eloquence ; but it differs 
from eloquence in being the expression of the beauty of truth, 
while eloquence is the expression of the power of truth to 
convince and persuade. If the preacher have an imaginative 
and esthetic mind he may easily put too much poetry into his 
eloquence. On the other hand, if his temperament be prosaic 
and matter-of-fact, his speech will lack a certain mystic charm 
that tends greatly to win the heart. 

What does Paul mean in i Corinthians ii. 1-4, where he 
reminds the church in Corinth that he came to them without 
" excellency of speech or of wisdom," and did not " determine 
to know anything among them, save Jesus Christ, and Him 
crucified"? Have we here an implied apostolic interdict on 
the whole study and practice of pulpit rhetoric ? In the light 
of the foregoing principles the apostle's meaning seems plain 
enough. Either truth or error may be insinuated into the mind 
under a skilful profusion of beautiful or affecting images and 
sounds. The rhetoricians sometimes employed them in Paul's 
day, as they do in our own. Hence oratory itself has been 
derisively called "the art of deception." Hypnotize your 
subject, and he will do your will, though with a blind docility 
and obedience. Cast on him the spell of a powerful oratorical 
imagination, and a similar result may follow. He will believe 
and do as you say; but the truth thus received is blindly re- 



378 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ceived, and is in danger of abiding in the imagination without 
working real conviction in the understanding and persuasion 
in the will. Do we not sometimes find it so in our revivals? 
A certain imaginative or pathetic style of preaching and singing 
will bring many to a pleased or a tearful acceptance of the 
Christian faith ; but ere long there is a sad falling away. They 
felt more of the beauty and the pathos of the Gospel than of 
its imperative force and its conscience-cleansing power. A 
preacher suitably gifted with " excellency of speech or of 
wisdom" may speak those "persuasive words of wisdom" 
which will produce this kind of conversions ; and the faith of 
the converts will " stand in the wisdom of men." Paul would 
have no such converts; and not merely that men might be 
unable to say, " Yes, like any other accomplished orator, he 
has been able to win some adherents by the witchery of 
words " ; but chiefly because he would have those " ad- 
herents " to be genuinely converted Christians. For when 
the truth is received through the understanding into the con- 
science and upon the will, its divine renewing energy may be 
felt " in demonstration of the Spirit and of power " ; and the 
faith of the regenerated soul will stand, " not in the wisdom of 
men, but in the power of God." This, therefore, was the apos- 
tolic method : " By the manifestation of the truth commending 
ourselves to every man's" — not taste or imagination— " to 
every man's conscience in the sight of God " (2 Cor. iv. 2). 
Imagination is an imperial gift ; pathos may melt and subdue 
all hearts. Paul employed them both ; but always with Chris- 
tian simplicity, always as subsidiary to instruction and appeal. 
Make the path of your hearers as smooth and pleasant as 
possible ; but let it be a path, not a pleasure-ground. Keep 
the object of your preaching in view, and press them right on 
toward that. 

3. It will tend to produce an easy, colloquial, and fluent style 
jf speech. Write out a discourse in compact and sharply de- 
fined sentences ; then attempt to deliver it as written ; and 



LITERARY FORM—THE MENTAL ATTITUDE 379 

you will be disappointed. A sense of unreality will steal the 
power out of your strongest periods. Why is it that a sermon 
that reads so well should speak so ill ? You have forgotten a 
characteristic difference between writing and speech. Writing, 
and that for the sake of which it is done, reading, are deliberate 
acts : there is plenty of time. Speech, on the contrary, is 
spontaneous, quick, fluent, extempore. Accordingly when we 
stand before a congregation repeating book-language, the 
people know and we know that we are not talking to them. 
But we look into their faces as if we were ; hence the unnat- 
uralness and consequent feebleness of utterance. "While 
listening to him," said one of Norman Macleod's hearers, " the 
thought never crossed my mind that he had been making a ser- 
mon." Doubtless Macleod had no such thought crossing his 
own mind. Whatever had been the character of his prepara- 
tion, he was now neither making a sermon nor repeating a 
made sermon ; he was just talking right out of his heart to the 
men and women before him. But when the form of utterance 
is of a kind to bring before the hearer's imagination the image 
of book-shelves and writing-paper and a pen laboriously mov- 
ing across the page, — alas for its power to enter in and take 
possession of the heart! 

Shall the sermon, then, be written in concise and accurate 
style ? It ought to be, if written at all ; but a certain ease 
and diffusiveness must be added before it becomes preachable. 
A friend of M. Thiers, paying the illustrious orator and states- 
man a visit on one occasion, found him busily engaged on a 
speech. " You came just in time," remarked Thiers ; " I am 
just finishing the speech that I am to deliver in the Corps 
L£gislatif to-morrow. I will read you some passages, and 
you may tell me what you think of it." His friend thought it 
a strong speech, but said that it seemed to lack somewhat of 
Thiers's easy and natural manner of expression. " You are 
right," said the orator ; " I haven't put in the negligences yet." 
So he added a conversational phrase here and there, softened 



380 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

down his too stately diction, and thus modified the " oratorical " 
paragraphs into a talk; and having finished his revision, 
" Now," he said, "it is spontaneous.' 1 ' 1 You will find something 
similar to be necessary in your preparation to preach. What- 
ever you may or may not have written down, the sermon will 
prove a clumsy and unfit instrument on the tongue, unless you 
somehow "put in the negligences." The "and now's" and 
" but let us see's " and " is it not so's " may be the marring of 
an essay, but they are none the less the making of a speech. 
The written sermon must be dealt with as Dr. Deems treated 
his exposition of the Epistle of James ("The Gospel of Com- 
mon Sense"), — "loosened out and inflamed for the pulpit." 

The hearer requires more repetition than the reader. Ob- 
viously so ; for the eye can dwell on the sentence or go back 
and review at pleasure, while the ear has but a single chance. 
Hence oratory repeats. Not, indeed, mechanically ; not for 
lack of something to say; but artistically — an illustrative, 
varied, climactic repetition. President Finney tells us that in 
the first years of his ministry the preachers sometimes com- 
plained of his repetitions. He would " take the same thought, 
and turn it over and over, and illustrate it in a variety of 
ways." But Finney had been a member of the legal profes- 
sion ; and lawyers know how necessary it is to do this. Be- 
sides, when the preachers said that he would not interest the 
educated people in that way, he reminded them that " lawyers, 
judges, and educated men by scores were converted under his 
ministry," whereas this was not the case under their more 
literary modes of speech. Of course, both at the bar and in 
the pulpit repetition may run into prolixity ; but this is only 
the old story of use degenerating into abuse. As to President 
Finney, it may also be noted that his addresses were directed 
mainly to the understanding and the conscience ; and these 
are ready to welcome an amount of iteration that would 
weary and stupefy the heart. 

4. It will tend to produce a concrete, specific, picturesque 



LITERARY FORM—THE MENTAL ATTITUDE 381 

style. Abstract statements, indeed, are necessary. Shall not 
the teachings of the Bible be announced as doctrines,— as great 
and universal truths ? But having thus announced a doctrine, 
we must show it again in the form of an incident, a figure, a 
man. Having defined, we must illustrate. It is done every 
day in the lecture-room ; and even more strongly is it called 
for in popular instruction. One preacher declares, in general 
terms, the goodness of God as shown in nature and in the 
constitution of man: that is the characteristic mode of his 
teaching. Another will say : " Let your eyelids fall for a few 
moments ; then imagine that you are never to raise them again ; 
the rest of your life must be spent in utter darkness ; then open 
your eyes, and thank God that you are not blind " : that is 
characteristic of his teaching. Now put the two modes to- 
gether: let the general truth be stated clear and strong; 
then send it home through the imagination to the heart in the 
particular instance, — this is the complete method. But if either 
of its constituent modes be slighted, let it not be the latter. 

Philosophy, history, biography : here is the descending order 
of intellectual significance, but the ascending order of personal 
interest. The intellect delights in the general notion, but it is 
the individual image only that touches the heart. Speak of 
the great battles of history ; and the emotions of your hearers 
will not be disturbed in the least. But tell of some wounded 
soldier dying in the hospital, a bright and noble-hearted boy, 
murmuring in his delirium of the dear old home and the loved 
faces he is no more to see, — and you will touch the springs of 
pity and of tears. Many successful books have been written 
on Christian doctrine and its outcome in daily life and con- 
duct ; but the book which has been read most of them all tells 
in parables how it fared with one troubled and triumphing soul 
on his way from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. 

Abstract and consecutive thinking is the fruit of greater 
gifts or a higher culture than most men enjoy. But the 
picture-making power is active even in the four-year-old child. 



382 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

You may safely assume that all your hearers are exercising 
this power constantly and without effort. Try to keep them 
on the line of abstract thought for any considerable length of 
time, and (even should you be able to maintain your own 
footing) the result will be failure. Their minds will slip away 
and go to making pictures of some sort, — of household affairs, 
of amusements, of business matters. Let your endeavor be 
to keep these out by a picturesque presentation of the truth. 

Thus the Bible teaches. Open it anywhere, and see if sub- 
tilized and philosophic forms of speech have been chosen 
for the divine revelation. No doubt they would have been, 
if this revelation had been made to the pure intellect instead 
of to the whole man. 

Thus our Lord taught. All through the Gospels we find it 
so. " When thou prayest " — not /ray in private — " enter into 
thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray." " Who- 
soever heareth these sayings of Mine" — not shall have security 
in time of trial— " I will liken him unto a wise man who built 
his house upon a rock." " Whosoever shall " — not show 
kindness to Christian teachers — "give to drink unto one of 
these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a 
disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his 
reward." 

" For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 
Where truth in closest words shall fail, 
When truth embodied in a tale 
Shall enter in at lowliest doors." 



Indeed, what is the very substance of our preaching ? Not 
an abstract doctrine, but a Being. Truth in the Christian 
pulpit has another name : it is Christ. Theology is discourse 
about God. The hope of the world, the power of righteous- 
ness in the human heart, the life eternal, is in Christ, is in God. 
Our Gospel is the evangel of a Person. No man is ready to 
preach it until his heart has risen up in rapturous love and 



LITERARY FORM— THE MENTAL ATTITUDE 3S3 

loyalty to HIM. "Whom" — not which — "whom we pro- 
claim," — the man Christ Jesus, incarnate, living the life of 
holy love, dying on the cross for the sin of the world, en- 
throned as King and Saviour of men. Separating the doctrine 
from the Person and the Life that gave it manifestation, we 
may express it in abstract and general terms ; but such cannot 
be the characteristic form for the preaching of Christ crucified. 

Read A. S. Hill's "Foundations of Rhetoric," Dr. Austin Phelps's 
" English Style in Public Discourse." 



LECTURE XXII 

THE SPIRIT OF THE SERMON 

I MUST tell you of a fear that has haunted me from the 
very beginning of our studies, and that will probably linger 
when the last word shall have been spoken. The modern 
sermon requires elaboration. There must be painstaking 
exegesis, a discriminating fusion of materials, the proper loca- 
tion and expression of ideas, a structural exhibition of truth. 
The danger is that, with the mind occupied about intellec- 
tual forms, there will be a loss both of spontaneity and 
of spiritual power. The sermon will be given out dry as to 
literary quality, and formally theological rather than truly 
instructive, religious, and inspiring. For there is something 
more subtle than truth and more significant than form,— the 
tone, the spirit, the pulsating life of one's words. 

How may the danger be averted ? Certainly not by casting 
all homiletics aside. This would be as if a man should refuse 
to read because of the temptations of bad literature. There 
are better preventives. One is,— always to bear in mind the 
greatness of this source of power in preaching. Another is, — 
not to restrict our public addresses to sermon forms ; but, dur- 
ing our preparatory studies and thereafter, to be instant in 
season and out of season, to exhort, to make impromptu talks 
whenever a suitable opportunity occurs. Still another is, — to 
guard the heart with all diligence, keeping it full of love and 
light. 

384 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SERMON 385 

Let me try, in the present lecture, to help you somewhat 
with respect to the first of these rules. I am aware of having 
called up a subject of which I shall be able to present only a 
fragment. For the spirit of the sermon is nothing less than 
the manifested spirit of the man. Whatever of the divine life 
— of humility, reverence, faith, love of truth, indignation against 
wrong, Christian compassion — may be in the preacher, the 
same will become the very breath of life to the sermon. This 
fundamental truth will keep reappearing through our whole 
course of study. 

But I may lay emphasis at this time on two great and ex- 
tremely comprehensive qualities. 

The first is humanity. I shall not attempt to define the 
term. A pretty fair synonym is sympathy; or, from an ex- 
ternal point of view, popularity. But humanity is a greater 
word than either of these. 

It is a thoroughly Christian word. Not that all humane 
feeling is a product of the Christian revelation. Far from it. 
The " barbarous " people of the island of Malta showed Paul 
and his companions, shipwrecked on their shore, "no little 
kindness," kindling them a fire in the rain and cold. Bishop 
William Taylor says that he understood our Lord's instruc- 
tions to His Apostles, that they should take neither purse nor 
wallet on their evangelizing tour, when he saw the remarkable 
hospitality of the African villagers to strangers. On the other 
hand, ecclesiasticism and theological dogma have perpetrated 
atrocities— as in the case of the Spanish Inquisition — at the 
recital of which the heart grows sick with horror. A rabbi, 
representing the prevalent Jewish feeling of extreme unneigh- 
borliness to all but fellow-Jews, could ask, " Who is my 
neighbor?" — and to the Old Testament command, " Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Lev. xix. i8), could add, 
on his own authority, "And hate thine enemy." A Samaritan 
could be humane and self-sacrificing toward a (eWow-man. 

Still it is an unquestionable truth that to Christianize is to 



386 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

humanize. The truest, deepest, fullest humanity will not be 
found apart from the religion of Jesus. It was an ancient 
pagan, to be sure, who first gave to a city the name " Philadel- 
phia " ; but he did it in honor of his own brother, whom he de- 
votedly loved. Does not every one recognize an act fairly 
representative of the Christian spirit, when William Penn takes 
up this same beautiful name and applies it, in a sense so much 
wider and more human, to the city which he is founding? To 
know the Son of man and become like-minded with Him is to 
draw near our fellow-men and love them as no other power 
on earth can enable us to do. Intellectual culture will have 
no such effect. The average intellect of the Greeks, in their 
periods of high civilization, was above that of the English and 
the American of to-day. In love of enjoyment and in the 
sense of the beautiful they have never been surpassed. Yet 
their inhumanity, especially to little children and to the aged, 
was that of the savage rather than that of the civilized man. 
" It is but one evidence out of a thousand," says Mahaffy, in his 
" Social Life in Greece," " that hitherto in the world's history 
no culture, no education, no political training, has been able 
to rival the mature and ultimate effects of Christianity in hu- 
manizing society." 

The tone of the sermon, then, so far as it is truly Christian, 
will be that of brotherly interest and good will, human, sym- 
pathetic with 

" The great Humanity that beats 
Its life along our stormy streets." 

The philosopher may spend his days in the study of man ; 
but, as -a philosopher, he is wholly uninterested in men. It is 
well that the preacher should have psychological insight and 
be somewhat of a philosopher ; but, as a preacher, he esteems 
the knowledge of man only as it brings him nearer in know- 
ledge, sympathy, and service to men. It is in them that he is 
interested. There is an intellectual sympathy, — that of the 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SERMON 387 

mind smitten with the love of truth for its fellow-students. 
There is the congeniality of culture and tastes. There is an 
attraction that every one feels in beauty of person and sweet- 
ness of manners. And in each of these things there is some 
trace of humanity. But not much more than a trace. Very 
few human beings are intellectual or cultured or beautiful. 
But there are gifts and experiences that are common to the 
race. The deepest relation between child and sage, criminal 
and saint, pauper and millionaire, is a very simple one, — iden- 
tity of nature. The real tragedy of life— birth, companionships, 
adjustment and maladjustment to circumstances, ignorance of 
the future, death— is the same in all. Our points of resem- 
blance are of far more importance than our differences. And 
the spirit of humanity is a fellow-feeling with others in these 
universal experiences, — with the common sufferings and the 
common joys of the world. 

Now, whatever the character of your congregation, be quite 
sure of this : they are men of the same senses and affections 
as yourself and other men. Cold, pure intellects do not exist. 
If in any audience, one might expect to find them in a court 
of judges on the supreme bench. But they, too, are human. 
A friend of mine has told me of two renowned lawyers — one 
of them his own father — who were talking of their pleadings 
before the Supreme Court. One had been uniformly success- 
ful; the other had frequently failed. "What has made the 
difference?" he asked of his friend. "I can tell you," was 
the answer; "you address them as judges, I as men." Fig- 
uratively as well as literally, a heart must always accompany 
a head. Speak to the heart. Speak as a man to men as men. 
Strike the chords of common human feeling ; they are there, 
behind the eyes into which yours are looking ; and you need 
not be doubtful of some response. 

We are to judge others by ourselves ; human nature is one. 
Again, we are not to judge others by ourselves ; experiences 
differ endlessly as to their specific character and intensity. 



3SS THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATIOX 

You are living in comfort. How many of your fellows are 
comfortable? how many of those immediately around you? 
Your work tends to uplift and enrich your whole nature ; the 
daily tasks of many are little more than animal drudgery. No 
terrible secret sorrow is gnawing at your heart ; but such an- 
guish is consuming the very life of some whom you meet in 
the street and in the congregation. You have much to live 
for ; some are tempted to feel that for them there is no longer 
anything. Know these things ; know them by sympathy, in 
your heart. Go out of self and enter into the lives of men 
and women that toil, that suffer, that are broken-hearted. 
On the other hand, learn to catch the reflection on your own 
spirit of joys that you have never yet personally known, and 
possibly never will. 

But how is it often in our preaching? I wish I could be- 
lieve Dr. Stalker at fault in a pulpit picture which he has 
drawn in " The Preacher and his Models " : 

" There is an unearthly style of preaching, without the blood 
of life in it : the people with their burdens in the pews — the 
burden of home, the burden of business, the burden of the 
problems of the day — while, in the pulpit, the minister is 
elaborating some nice point, which has taken his fancy in the 
course of his studies, but has no interest whatever for them. 
Only now and then a stray sentence may pull up their wan- 
dering attention. Perhaps he is saying, ' Now some of you 
may reply ' : and then follows an objection to what he has 
been stating which no actual human being would ever think 
of making. But he proceeds elaborately to demolish it, while 
the hearer, knowing it to be no objection of his, retires into 
his own interior." 

Perhaps the severest criticism that has been made on a 
regular academic and theological education is that it shuts 
the intending preacher in from the every-day life of the world. 
If this were only for a short time, instead of an evil we should 
have a benefit. But six or ten years in the formative period 
of one's life is a long time. Let it be spent in scholastic 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SERMON <589 

seclusion ; and the young scholar comes forth conversant with 
a certain range of ideas, but somewhat dehumanized. Is it 
not an advantage of the English over the American system 
of ministerial training, that the former keeps the student at the 
university in contact with a large number of fellow-students 
in all branches of study and in preparation for various profes- 
sions, while the latter sends him from the college to the semi- 
nary for three years of companionship with theological students 
only? The years of preparatory study ought by all means 
to be years of genial association with the people of his 
neighborhood, and of practical Christian work among them. 

It is also true, however, that the actual work of the pastor- 
ate is well adapted to develop the spirit of humanity. It 
brings the minister into contact with " all sorts and conditions 
of men." His place is every where. He is everybody's friend, 
helper, associate, guest. If he continue or become an ab- 
stracted, unpractical, bookish man, it will be because he has 
not been wholly true to his calling. Our hearts will be touched, 
thrilled, enlarged continually, if we mingle with our fellow-men, 
young and old — in cabin, mansion, office, shop, street — as 
opportunity offers and duty demands. 

If we mingle with them,— if we are of them, a man among 
men. Not if we are patronizing to some and obsequious to 
others. Not if we are always conscious of official relations. 
Not if we encourage the idea in people's minds — or in our 
own — that we are somehow a different sort of being from 
themselves, so that they cannot feel entirely easy in our pres- 
ence. If we be human and manly to begin with, the life of a 
Christian pastor will make us more human, more manly. 

Last night, while meditating on this subject, I opened at 
random a volume of McNeill's " Sermons," to see what ex- 
amples I could find of the spirit of humanity in the pulpit. I 
will give you the first passage that attracted my attention : 

" ' Lord, how are they increased that trouble me ! ' Are 
there not still some souls who sometimes come through a 
morning like that? As the days and years increase upon you, 



390 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

my Christian friends, your skies are not brighter and your 
path is not lighter. You are going through, in your measure, 
the experience of this much-tried man who wrote the Psalms. 
Increase of years means for you, humanly speaking, increase 
of trouble, increase of sorrow. 

' Though trouble springs not from the dust, 

Nor sorrow from the ground, 
Yet ills on ills by Heaven's decree 

In your estate are found.' 

" Long ago you looked forward to the age to which you 
now have come, and you said, 'Ah! then my life's battle's by 
[past]. Then I'll have fought and won ; then I'll have reached 
my kingdom.' Like a poor field-laborer who used to say, to 
cheer him in present toil and poverty, ' But, wife, we'll soon 
have the farm now.' That was his summum bonum. How 
you looked forward to yours! It was your day-star. ' When 
I reach forty — when I reach fifty — when I reach sixty — and 
my present raven locks "a sable silvered," how tranquil will 
all things be round about me then! Land ahead! I shall 
almost see the white cliffs of heaven right ahead. I shall feel 
that I am almost home, that I am almost there — only a few 
more tranquil days, and under sunlit or moonlit skies I shall 
drift across the harbor bar, and drop my anchor in Fair Havens 
at last.' And what has happened? ' Why,' you say, ' I never 
knew what trouble was till I came to fifty,' "—and so on. 

The sermons of such a preacher are the best possible present- 
day illustrations of the spirit of humanity in Christian preaching. 

But the preacher is not simply a popular speaker. He 
speaks to men as men ; but he does this in more than the 
ordinary sense of the words. What are men? There is a 
realm of thought and of natural affection in which they move ; 
but there is also a higher life that claims them as its subjects, 
— the life of conscience, the life of the spirit. Even now in 
the flesh every man's closest and most vital relation is with 
God in Christ. The realization of it is religion : " Our citizen- 
ship is in heaven." And here is the sole reason of the Christian 
preacher's appearance among his fellows. When the Baptist 
was born, his name was given him from heaven,— John, which 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SERMON 391 

is, being interpreted, Jehovah is gracious; for it was to be the 
life-work of John the Baptist to declare that Christ and the 
kingdom of heaven were at hand. It is a name for every 
preacher of the Gospel ; for he is sent forth as a bearer of the 
same evangel in its fulfilment : God is gracious, Christ is come, 
the kingdom of heaven is among you. His audience are not 
to him merely human minds and hearts, but human, redeemed, 
immortal spirits. He comes to speak to them of the things of 
the spirit. The place of meeting is not the town hall nor 
the lecture-room, but the house of the Lord. An invariable 
and appropriate accompaniment of his preaching is worship. 
Therefore, together with its humanity, there should likewise 
be an all-pervasive spirituality in the sermon. 

This too is sympathy ; and of the very noblest order. For 
is it not a fellow-feeling with men in that which is highest 
and best in their nature? Without it a man may indeed 
abound in generous affections ; but he will fail immeasurably 
in his appreciation of those whom he loves. The love of 
souls, that spark of celestial fire, has not yet enkindled his 
sympathies. Suppose him to be a father. His children are 
very dear to him ; all that he has is theirs ; in their sufferings 
he suffers, and in their joys he is glad. But if he have an 
unspiritual mind, there is one great sphere of their life into 
which he cannot enter. When the Spirit of God touches their 
hearts, to waken penitence and prayer and hunger for right- 
eousness, it is all nothing to their earthly father. They need 
not come to him : for bread he can give them only a stone. 

But Christian sympathy does not waver and fail at the 
point of spiritual experience. It reaches up to that which is 
highest, and includes all. The preacher's spirit of humanity 
is also spirituality. 

The lower sympathy is good in itself, but it is also good as 
the condition of something better. Here, as elsewhere, the 
law is : First that which is natural, afterward that which is 
spiritual. Approach men on all sides of their nature ; become 



392 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

"all things to all men," but let it be that you "may by all 
means save some." Do not even depreciate the sense of wit 
and humor. It is no unholy thing ; it is a distinctively human 
emotion. Cowper's dislike of the preacher who would " court 
a grin," when he should " woo a soul," has been often approved 
by homiletic writers ; and properly enough. But it would not 
have been amiss to say a word for the man who evokes a 
smile by some momentary and chastened play of wit, that it 
may help him to "woo a soul." Adjust yourself to the indi- 
vidual temperaments of men, and to their various tastes and 
prejudices, with the untaught art of love. But let it be done 
with no lower motive than to gain a hearing for those words 
of God whereby, as it is written, " man shall live." Put your 
whole human self into the word of God, and make it your own 
■word, that you may the better impart it to others. Jesus was 
the Saviour of the body, ever ready to heal the diseased. 
But it was His ultimate object thus to make a way for Him- 
self into the heart and spirit. It was a small thing for Him 
to feed five thousand men with the " meat that perisheth," if 
no prayer were thereby excited in their hearts for " that meat 
which endureth unto eternal life " (John vi.). It was a small 
thing for Him to open the blind eyes, unless He might thereby 
bring the true vision of God to men's souls (John ix.). 

Will men listen to such discourse? Can we talk of the 
things of God, in the spirit of one who lives in daily contact 
with them, and gain a hearing? However this may be, neces- 
sity is laid upon us : it is of these things and in this spirit that 
we are bound to speak. But the humanity of the sermon will 
open a way in men's minds for its spirituality. And, chiefly, 
men are spirits, with spiritual needs and longings, with guilt 
on their consciences, with a desire (however little expressed) 
to know something of the Divine Power by which they live, 
with an abiding sense of accountability to God. If they have 
fallen so low as to be entirely satisfied with earthly things, the 
spell may be broken and their higher nature roused to self- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SERMON 393 

assertion. By no means may we regard them as wholly given 
up to worldliness and animalism. Are they incapable, for 
example, of unselfish patriotism? Let the right leader appear 
— a Judas Maccabseus, a William the Silent, a Garibaldi — and 
men will follow him in rags and blood ; they will sacrifice 
property, personal ambitions, home, life itself, for their native 
land. Said Garibaldi to the Italians, in the crisis of their 
struggle for independence : " In return for the love you may 
show your country, I offer you hunger and thirst, cold, war, 
and death. Whoso accepts the terms, let him follow me." 
And an impassioned army followed him to victory and freedom. 

But still deeper in the human soul lie the principles to which 
the Gospel makes its appeal. Religious man has always been 
and always will be ; religious and capable of true piety and 
sonship to God. I have heard a Roman Catholic bishop 
lament the passing away of the "ages of faith." They will 
never pass away. And as a Christian preacher you are sent 
to men with that truth which only can fully satisfy their religious 
nature, — the revelation of God and the redemption of the 
world in Christ Jesus. When man ceases to be man, your 
office will become antiquated ; not before. 

One reason, indeed, for the lack of interest shown in preach- 
ing is that the preaching is often so unspiritual. Let a man 
speak from his conscience to the conscience in other men ; let 
him stand before the people from Sunday to Sunday and 
really interpret to them the spiritual life, bringing it home to 
their faith and feeling, and declaring the treasures of wisdom 
and power in Christ, out of his own experience ; and he will 
not fail of recognition. Some will turn away with indifference, 
some will wonder and turn away, and some will harden their 
hearts ; but all will feel the touch of his power, and many will 
receive the Word of God gladly from his lips. 

What brought the neglected multitudes of England to the 
preaching of Wesley? Did he flatter their vanity? Did he 
play the demagogue and foment a spirit of passionate discon- 



394 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

tent with their social and industrial conditions? Did he offer 
them earthly advantages? Did he gratify their fancies? Was 
he witty or pathetic? None of these things. He alarmed 
and instructed the conscience. He showed the way of salva- 
tion in Christ. The theme of his preaching, like the principle 
of his personal conduct, was, " Holiness unto the Lord." If 
ever a man taught the doctrine which is according to godli- 
ness, Wesley did it continually. And it was to this that tens 
of thousands harkened and responded. 

Or take a very different example, from a more recent time. 
Where shall we find a greater moral intensity, a higher standard 
of feeling and conduct, a more ideal spiritual utterance, than 
in the sermons of Frederick Robertson? And did not rapt 
and eager congregations hang upon his words? Has not 
their influence, since his brief and troubled life ended, been 
one of the marvels of the modern pulpit? 

Or, to take an example strikingly different from both these : 
such were the devoutness and spirituality of John Summer- 
field, and so ethereal his appearance and speech withal, that 
his preaching has been described as seraphic rather than 
human. " Indeed, he not only prayed before he preached 
and after he preached, — for he went to the pulpit from his 
knees, and back to his knees from the pulpit, — but he seemed 
to be praying while he preached. Prayer was so much his 
breath that, as Gregory Nazianzen says of the true Christian, 
the breathing went on whatever he was doing, not hindering 
him, but necessary to him." And the churches in which he 
ministered were overcrowded with hearers. 

Here is the secret of unction. Nowhere save in religious 
discourse does this strangely penetrating and subduing power 
make itself felt. Because it arises from the intermingling of 
sympathy with men and an affecting sense of the truth and the 
presence of God. It is tenderness and passion, " mingled 
tears and fire," but not this alone, — tenderness and passion and 
believing prayer. It is this that illumines the spirit and melts 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SERMON 395 

the heart of both preacher and hearer as no other eloquence 
can do. 

Therefore, with all our getting of rules and methods, and 
with all our gathering of materials, let us keep close in heart 
and spirit to Him from whom we receive our message, and to 
them that hear us. Said a plain-spoken Scotch parishioner: 
" Our first minister was a man, but he was not a minister ; our 
second was a minister, but he was not a man ; and the one we 
have at present is neither a man nor a minister." Man and 
minister is what every pulpit calls for. 

Nothing could be easier than to show instances of powerful 
preaching that has been notably deficient in all formal respects ; 
but it would not be easy to cite instances of truly effective 
preaching in which the vitalizing spirit of humanity and spirit- 
uality is lacking. Call to mind any of the great men of the 
pulpit, representing the widest dissimilarities of genius, culture, 
manner, theological views, outward circumstances, — such as 
Luther, Spurgeon, Liddon, Brooks, Simpson,— and in them 
all will be found, in different measures and proportions, these 
two elements of power. Take out the sympathy and the 
spiritual mind from their sermons, leaving all the rest; and 
how completely are they shorn of their strength! 

The supreme example of powerful speech is that one Teacher 
of men in whose life the divine and the human, God and man, 
were fully manifested. For His words were a large and signif- 
icant part of His life, an ever-increasing revelation of Himself. 
Why, then, should it not have been true that never had words 
like His, either as to humanity or spirituality, been spoken on 
earth? They were not theological terms, but the language of 
every-day life. They were not addressed to the accidental, 
but to that which is essential and universal in men, — to the 
common understanding, heart, and conscience. And in them 
all there was the heart-beat of love and sympathy, such as 
only the Son of man could feel. 

But it has been well said that men cannot be brothers un- 



396 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

less they have a Father in heaven. Their unity is in God. 
It was of Him that Jesus spoke continually, and out of a per- 
fect realization of His holy presence, and of perfect oneness 
with His nature and will, — of Him, and of the infinitely precious 
human soul, of the kingdom of heaven, of eternal life and death. 
Listening to Him, we feel the body to be indeed but the out- 
ward organ of the soul, the visible the symbol of the invisible, 
and time a vanishing point in eternity. 

One of His own great words explains it all : " The Son of 
man who is in heaven." 

Read Dr. William M. Taylor's " Ministry of the Word," Dr. Stalker's 
" The Preacher and his Models," Spurgeon's " Lectures to my Students " 
(first series), Arthur's " Tongue of Fire." 



LECTURE XXIII 

ORDER— REPETITION— SOME SPECIAL OCCASIONS 

THE constantly recurring question, What shall I preach 
next Sunday? is properly a part of some such broader 
question as, What shall I preach this year? The breadwinner 
makes provision for the months and years ; the housewife 
considers what she shall have for dinner to-day. The preacher 
is both breadwinner and housewife. How shall I select and 
arrange the themes of my preaching in a ministry of one, of 
two, of four years?— this is his larger thought. 

The principle is that the whole truth into which the Spirit 
of truth has been given to guide him, as a disciple and minister 
of Christ, shall be taught the people, as their capacities may 
permit and their needs require. " Who then is the faithful 
and wise steward, whom his Lord shall set over His house- 
hold, to give them their portion of food in due season? " 
(Luke xii. 42). 

1 . First of all, there must be some order of pulpit ministra- 
tions. What has already been said concerning order in suc- 
cessive prayer-meeting talks might be repeated with added 
emphasis here. As each discourse should be constructed 
according to some plan, so should the combination of dis- 
courses through any period of one's ministry. As it is well 
that the individual sermon should be a unity, so is it that the 
sermons of a whole pastoral term collectively should be a unity 
of unities. There is no more reason to expect success from 
397 



398 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

random choices in this part of our work than in any other. 
For here, as everywhere, order has a moral as well as an intel- 
lectual element : it means the right distribution and timely 
command of the forces at our disposal. 

Christian preaching is, to a considerable extent, didactic: 
" I will give you shepherds according to Mine heart, which shall 
feed you with knowledge and understanding" (Jer. iii. 15). 
What would be thought of a teacher in the lecture-room who 
presented such topics as were easy for him to handle, or such 
as happened to come in his way, with no predetermined course 
of instruction? Now the systematic arrangement of topics 
cannot, for obvious reasons, be observed with the same exact- 
ness in the pulpit as in the lecture-room. But the conclusion 
by no means follows that it should not be observed at all. 
It is in this matter as in many others, — the preacher's task is 
peculiarly personal and difficult. But just as in his daily work 
he has more liberty than is enjoyed in most callings, — the 
hours not being divided off for him, with the duty of each 
prescribed, — and yet he is not thereby freed from the obligation 
of a systematic employment of time, so in the matter now 
under consideration. Called unto liberty, he must not use it 
as an occasion to the flesh, but in the service of love. The 
pastor's course of teaching will be a stream disturbed by many 
an unforeseen obstruction, and with many a short and sudden 
curve, but still preserving one general direction, — a stream, not 
an irregular overflow. 

You will sometimes have the feeling, No permanent impres- 
sion is made — I have presented this and that, but have not 
thoroughly taught and impressed anything. Let this suggest 
the advantage of serial preaching. A revival of religion will 
offer a similar suggestion ; for one of its secrets of success is 
that the same general subject is kept before the people from 
day to day. Why not apply this principle to the ordinary 
course of preaching? What great truth would you present 
more fully than can be done on any single occasion, — "The 



ORDER-REPETITION-SPECIAL OCCASIONS 399 

Work of the Holy Spirit," "The Mutual Relations of Pastor and 
People, " " Success and Failure in Life," " The Christian View 
of Business and Property "? Deliver not one, but several suc- 
cessive sermons on the subject. Or you may see fit to give 
a biographical series. You believe it would be an excellent 
thing if some representative Bible character— say, Samuel, 
Saul, David, Ahithophel, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, John the Bap- 
tist — could be shown to the people, in his faults and his virtues, 
in his limitations and his greatness, as these appear in the various 
events of his life, till the full moral impression of that one man 
should be made upon their minds. Or you may wish to set 
forth the significance of some period of Bible history, — such 
as that of the reign of David, or the establishment of the 
first Christian churches. Indeed, suitable themes for serial 
preaching are innumerable. 

But do not imagine that the mere announcement of a series 
will awaken popular interest. The effect may be rather 
the opposite. It will depend largely on the subject. Often 
it may be better to let the series disclose itself, without prean- 
nouncement. In any event, your predominant motive must be, 
not attractiveness, but impression. Besides, you need not be 
sensitive about interruptions. If some outside topic demand 
attention, take it up : the rest of the series will probably not 
lose in interest in thus waiving its right of way. 

Note, also, that the series, like the single sermon, is in more 
danger of running on too long than of stopping too soon. 
Often four or five sermons are enough. 

And now what are some of the considerations that may 
properly influence the pastor in determining the order of pulpit 
themes ? 

(i) The contents of the teaching itself,— Christian doctrine. 
We may be sure that it is all needed. Not one truth of salva- 
tion is antiquated, nor ever will be. Not one is adapted to 
certain communities only : all are applicable to all. Look 
upon any congregation that can be gathered, and know that 



400 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the whole circle of doctrine as taught by our Lord personally, 
and by His Spirit in the hearts of His Apostles, concerning 
God and man — concerning sin, judgment, redemption, Chris- 
tian experience and character — is what you are sent to teach 
and proclaim. Note the deficiencies in the subject-matter of 
your teaching, and endeavor to correct them. Above all, see 
that Christ Crucified is the great central truth whose light and 
power inform all the others and make them the power of 
God unto salvation to every believer. 

(2) Circumstances and 'outward 'conditions. These often invite 
or even require recognition. 

In the Lutheran and the Episcopal Church the Catholic 
usage is perpetuated of naming the Sundays of the year with 
reference to the great facts of redemption as accomplished in 
the life of our Lord, and to the Christian doctrine of the 
Trinity. The Scripture selections for each occasion are pre- 
scribed ; and the original intention was that the text of the 
sermon should be chosen from the Gospel or the Epistle for 
the day. Thus the supreme Christian facts — the Advent, the 
Cross, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Baptism of the 
Holy Spirit — and the supreme truth of the Divine Nature 
revealed as Father, Son, and Spirit are presented to the people 
every year, and in the same general order. This arrangement 
is after the manner of the Old Testament and the synagogue 
rather than of the New Testament. It originated with those 
who proposed to put ecclesiastics rather than prophets into 
the pulpit. Still this Christian year is suggestive of the cen- 
tral position of our Lord's life and work and the New Testa- 
ment revelation of God, in Christian teaching ; and of the 
expediency of setting forth the truth according to some prin- 
ciple of orderly succession. Two seasons of the church year, 
Christmas and Easter, have won the attention and sympathy 
of the general Christian community, and thus afford special 
opportunities for preaching on the great events for which they 
stand. 



ORDER-REPETITION— SPECIAL OCCASIONS 401 

The Lord's Supper sets forth in simple forms of sense the 
very heart of the Gospel. A sermon to the eye, it preaches 
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Thus the administration of 
this sacrament affords the pulpit a periodical opportunity of 
declaring the essential truths of the Christian faith, and the 
duties inseparable from them. The life of Christ, atonement, 
reconciliation, the remission of sins, communion with Christ, 
the communion of saints, the new covenant, thanksgiving, 
self-sacrifice, consecration, the sacramental character of our 
natural life,— such are some of the themes for thought and 
speech at the table of our Lord. 

It is also an appropriate occasion for the reception of 
members into the church; and this service calls for specific 
themes of preaching. 

Again : human life, nature, God's providence, are so many 
continually opening books in the world around us ; and, as 
interpreted by the Scriptures and by the Spirit of truth in the 
preacher's own heart, these too have a place in the pulpit. 
Suppose, for example, the occasion be that of the first sermon 
or the last in a pastoral charge : shall the preaching be alto- 
gether such as would be suited to any ordinary occasion ? Or 
suppose that death has robbed the church of some of its best- 
beloved members ; that some new field of usefulness has been 
opened in the neighborhood; that some public calamity has 
shocked the community ; that the hard winter weather is 
pinching the poor and emphasizing the claims of brotherly 
kindness and charity ; that the winter is over and gone, and 
the springtime, with all its spiritual suggestiveness, has ap- 
peared upon the earth ; that the public mind is agitated by 
some grave social problem, — and no application of the truth 
is made to these newly arising circumstances and conditions : 
will not the pulpit so far be standing apart from the life of the 
people, instead of bringing to bear upon them all its regulative 
and sanctifying power? 

The preacher's congregation live in this world— and so 



402 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

should he. Not in his books, not in the realm of abstract ideas, 
not even in religious contemplation, so as to become insensible 
to his surroundings and his time. Like the prophets and 
apostles, he is to be at once of his time and above it. He is 
called indeed to bear witness to eternal and unchangeable 
truth ; but he is to bear witness, and this means that he shall 
speak so as to be listened to, and so as to apply his testimony 
to the case in hand. While the Bible furnishes his theme, the 
newspaper may also be helpful in its place. Jesus found a 
word of instruction and warning in the killing of the Galileans 
by Pilate while they were offering sacrifices, and in the falling 
of the tower in Siloam (Luke xiii. 1-5). 

(3) But it must be borne in mind that every man's real 
preaching is limited by what he knows, and that to know truly 
is to experience. Quantum sumus sennits. Suppose the theme 
which the circumstances call for should not take hold of his 
own heart ; suppose this or that doctrine of Christianity should 
not have been elaborated in his own experience : how can he 
preach it? He may as a mere herald or messenger deliver a 
message which he does not understand ; but how can a witness 
testify to anything which he himself has not seen and known? 

The defect in this case is in the man. To this extent he is 
unqualified for his ministry. He must know. Let him seek 
a more perfect development of the Christian mind in himself. 
What is the truth which has not so entered into his experience 
as to make its utterance from his lips a word of power? What 
is the duty which has been so neglected as to cause him to 
feel like a half-hypocrite in urging it upon others? What are 
the passages of Scripture which, for personal reasons, he hesi- 
tates to preach from? Let him know that truth, do that duty, 
take that Scripture as food for his own inner life. The ex- 
ceeding sinfulness of sin, the holy love of God, the atoning 
grace of Christ, the witness of the Spirit, patience, self-control, 
love to enemies, kindness at home, trust in Providence, — every 
Christian truth and precept should be wrought into his faith 



ORDER-REPETITION-SPECIAL OCCASIONS 403 

and feeling and will. Has he not put off the old man and 
put on the new man, " which is being renewed unto know- 
ledge after the image of Him that created him"? "What- 
soever things are true, . . . honorable, . . . just, . . . pure, 
. . . lovely, ... of good report ; if there be any virtue, and 
if there be any praise, think on these things." 

You may also expect to find, however, that a subject will 
sometimes slip into your mind, make its appeal, decline to be 
set aside, waken the feeling that somehow you would like to 
preach it and ought to do so. For the time there is none like 
it, none so interesting, no rival. Very well ; think it out and 
preach it, next Sunday, if you can. 

Again, everything is not possible to everybody. By certain 
minds certain aspects of the common truth will be seen more 
clearly and assimilated more thoroughly than by others. As 
we are all men, not machines, so have we temperaments, 
capacities, experiences, which differ endlessly. Whence ap- 
pear the prerequisites for special ministerial missions : Paul 
is sent to the Gentiles and Peter to the Jews ; John becomes 
the interpreter of the inner life of Christ ; James writes of good 
works rather than of faith and love. In such a man as Bishop 
Butler it was simple fidelity to the law of his own mind and 
his consequent mission to men that he should uniformly teach 
the deep, rational, philosophic aspects of the Christian faith. 
In such a man as George Whitefield, one of his contemporaries, 
it would have been unfaithfulness and folly to attempt it. 
When a friend asked Phillips Brooks which of his sermons he 
was going to preach in Westminster Abbey, "Sermon?" he 
answered, "/ have but one." Each man will do his most 
effective work along the line of his strongest convictions and 
deepest life. Let it be so ; let each give according to that 
which he has ; let him preach out of his own experience, poor 
as it may be, rather than out of the richest possible borrowed 
experiences. Only let not any man on whom a congregation 
is dependent for the ministration of the Gospel be hindered 



404 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

and crippled by narrowness, ignorance, one-sidedness, or 
hobbies. 

(4) The people themselves. This, after all, is the decisive 
consideration. Always is it to be remembered that we preach 
neither for the sake of a system of theology, nor for self-ex- 
pression. These are means, and are good only as adaptable 
to their end,— the salvation of men. But it is quite possible 
to be more concerned about honoring and defending the truth 
than about saving those to whom we are sent. Therefore 
study people ; know the souls before you. Know what they 
read ; know their doubts, their besetting sins, their spiritual 
aspirations, their state of mind as influenced by circumstances 
and current events. Then preach the truth in such measures, 
in such proportions, in such forms, at such times, as may seem 
best suited to bring men to Christ and to build them up in 
the Christian life. 

It would be interesting to know what subjects the people 
themselves would choose to hear preached from Sunday to 
Sunday, if the privilege of choosing were allowed them. Not 
always, we may be sure, those which they most needed. If 
so, " then is the offense of the cross ceased." What people 
wish to hear is not always what they need to hear. But in 
many cases it is. The healthy soul, like the healthy body, 
hungers for its necessary food. I have sometimes been re- 
quested to preach on certain subjects, when the motive seemed 
to be an intellectual curiosity rather than a spiritual craving. 
But oftener the request, I could not doubt, was the expression 
of a sincere desire for help in perplexity or comfort in trouble. 
As I try at this moment to recall the sermons I have been 
asked to re-preach, they all seem to have differed from the 
common run by being more spiritual, more consolatory, or 
more closely practical. 

But the sympathetic and wise-hearted preacher will not 
wait for his congregation to make requests : he will learn their 
susceptibilities and needs, and devote himself constantly to 



ORDER— REPETITION— SPECIAL OCCASIONS 405 

their service. He will prepare and preach sermons with 
specific reference to individuals ; and not for their sakes alone, 
but also for the class, larger or smaller, represented by them. 
Let one example suffice. Here is a member of your congre- 
gation who is evidently interested in religion, who hears the 
Gospel gladly and " does many things," but for some reason 
hesitates to surrender himself fully to Christ. Is he "a dis- 
ciple of Jesus, but secretly"? Is he one who would love 
God, but who somehow finds it hard to believe that God loves 
him? Preach to him, sermon after sermon, if necessary, with 
strong faith in God that you may remove his difficulties, 
strengthen his wavering will, and lead him to a whole-hearted 
acknowledgment of his Lord. Those sermons may be the fit 
instrument for bringing not only him, but others of whom you 
may or may not know, into that kingdom of God about the 
threshold of which they are lingering. When a sturdy Scotch- 
man wrote that he had been hit by a random shot from the 
pulpit of the Church of the Strangers in New York City, a 
member of the pastor's family, who was familiar with his 
preaching habits, replied : " Not ' a random shot,' my good 
brother ; he knew somebody like you and was aiming at him. 
He always preached from his own pulpit at some particular 
person in the audience. When preaching to a strange audi- 
ence he preached at himself. Somebody was always hit. He 
wasted no ammunition shooting in the air with both eyes 
shut." 

Now you are ready to ask, What sort of orderly course of 
preaching is that which is to be determined by so many and 
such various considerations? It is what I have indicated 
from the outset, — all the more real, because spiritual and vital 
rather than intellectual or mechanical. It is such as we may 
reasonably believe an apostle would have followed. 

2. Another point which may be best considered in this 
connection is the repetition of sermons. 

The same subject will be needed by the congregation again 



406 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

and again : shall we, then, repeat a sermon that has been re- 
cently given? The question usually seems to turn upon the 
repetition of the text. It is easily settled in many cases by 
those preachers whose sermonizing is uniformly topical. Just 
so the text is not the same (which is easily managed), they avail 
themselves of the liberty of presenting the same line of thought, 
either wholly or in part, over and over. The people, likewise, 
are inclined to identify the repetition of a text with the 
repetition of the sermon. It is the cases in which the text 
is so interwrought with the sermon as to make it impracti- 
cable to separate them — the sermon being not simply on or 
from the text, but truly oat of it — that generally suggest the 
inquiry. 

The answer is simple enough. It will not often be expedi- 
ent to repeat a sermon within a few weeks or months after 
its first delivery. The same truth will be more likely to be 
effectual if put into some other form. But if a true reason 
for repeating appear, not a false or a pretended reason, — origi- 
nating in indolence, for example, — let it be done, without any 
attempt at concealment, and without sensitiveness or hesi- 
tation. 

A more practical question to many preachers is the repetition 
of the sermon to different congregations. Here we come upon 
an undoubted evil, — an abuse of what is in itself a happy op- 
portunity. Sermons are re-preached apparently without any 
limit save that of place. Hence it comes to pass that many 
ministers do not prepare a dozen new sermons in a year. 
" The truth is the same," they argue, " and it saves so much 
time and toil to utilize the old sermon on every possible occa- 
sion." The genial Bishop Clark of Rhode Island, speaking 
of his lecturing days, says : " I had one lecture that I delivered 
three hundred and fifty times, and it became so familiar at last 
that I could go through with it automatically, and think about 
something else all the time." But the cost of such economy 
of time, in the case of the preacher, is too great, — the habit of 



ORDER— REPETITION— SPECIAL OCCASIONS 407 

self-indulgence and the arrest of mental development. And 
the result in the preaching will by no means be merely nega- 
tive. The old, reiterated sermon is not delivered with as good 
effect as when it was fresh and vital, and did express the best 
that was in the preacher's mind and heart at the time. So 
the " dead line " is drawn ; the preacher falls in the estimation 
of the people, and perhaps complains of it,— gently or loudly, 
according to his nature,— instead of raising his lamentation 
over the actual evil, the death of his pulpit. 

Nevertheless, I am far from advising that a bonfire be made 
annually, or at any time, of all one's sermon manuscripts. 
Some, doubtless, had as well take the form of ashes. Such as 
were made in low moods, or because it had to be done, may 
be better out of the way. It might have been still better had 
they never come into existence. But a sermon that represents 
the best thought and experience of a true man living in the 
communion of the Holy Spirit, at any time in his ministry, 
will contain something that does not deserve to be destroyed. 
Keep them— these children of your heart and brain — and let 
them serve you as they ought. 

I find an interesting confession in the life of Wesley, an 
extract from his journal : 

" September i . I went to Tiverton. I was musing here 
on what I heard a good man say long since : ' Once in seven 
years I burn up all my sermons ; for it is a shame if I cannot 
write better sermons now than I could seven years ago.' 
Whatever others can do, I really cannot. I cannot write a 
better sermon on 'The Good Steward' than I did seven years 
ago ; I cannot write a better on 'The Great Assize' than I did 
twenty years ago ; nay, I know not that I can write a better 
on 'The Circumcision of the Heart' than I did five and forty 
years ago." 

In the case of writers the first stroke is sometimes the finest, 
—the first book the most attractive and influential; perhaps 
because it represents freshly and vividly the thought that 



408 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

through the whole previous life has struggled for expression. 
William Cullen Bryant's " Thanatopsis," written at the age of 
eighteen, will not suffer in comparison with any of his later 
productions. John Calvin published his first edition of the 
" Institutes of the Christian Religion " at the age of twenty- 
six. What, then, is the peculiarity of homiletic productions 
which renders them comparatively worthless after the lapse of 
one or more years? 

Here and there in your treasury of sermons will be one 
that fits both your mind and tongue most happily. It seems 
to mean more than the generality of your discourses; it ex- 
presses more that you wish to tell, and makes a deeper im- 
pression, apparently, on the congregation. Shall it be burned, 
or laid aside, or remodeled, or made use of only in case of the 
greatest necessity, just because it has been used before? This 
would be an extremely unwise economy of means and re- 
sources. Would any one suppose it to have been to the 
advantage of the cause of religion that Simpson's sermon on 
" The Christian Ministry " (Acts xx. 24), or Marvin's on 
" Christ and the Church " (Eph. v. 22-33), should have been 
delivered only on one or two occasions? Similarly Dr. E. D. 
Griffin's sermon on " The Worth of the Soul " was preached 
nearly a hundred times ; but it was asked for again and again, 
and was probably not delivered once too often. 

If an old sermon be not too strait for your present preaching 
self, — containing just what you would now say on the subject, 
— what would be gained by either its destruction or its recon- 
struction? But this will not very often be so. In all ordinary 
cases the old sermon must be made a new sermon, — recast, 
or at least retouched and revivified. Then it may prove a 
more effective instrument in your hand than if it were entirely 
new. 

3. We must pass on now to consider some special themes 
and occasions of our ministry in the congregation. 

(1) Funeral sermons are not nearly so common as formerly. 



ORDER-REPETITION-SPECIAL OCCASIONS 409 

Even in the case of the most saintly and useful Christians 
usually no text is taken, no subject discussed. An address, or 
perhaps remarks by two or more friends, takes the place of the 
sermon ; and at many funerals the devotional services are all. 

So far as the omission of sermonic form and elaborateness 
are concerned, this change of custom may be regarded as a 
gain. So far as it leaves the minister at liberty to speak of 
the deceased or not, or to say little or more, as may seem 
expedient, there is greater gain. But if the tendency be to- 
ward a mere decent ceremony, unvitalized by the truth and 
aiming at no benefit to the congregation, it is not to be com- 
mended, but deplored. The house of mourning is hardly the 
place for preaching, in the stricter sense of the term ; but surely 
it is not an unfit place for the Gospel, — for the spoken word 
of Christian warning, instruction, consolation, hope. It re- 
quires delicacy of perception, tact, sympathy, and faithfulness 
to speak such a word; but are these qualities beyond our 
reach? "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of them 
that are taught, that I should know how to sustain with words 
him that is weary." 

The point of greatest embarrassment is where we speak 
directly of the deceased. Nowhere perhaps is the word of 
preaching more likely to fail in fidelity and truth. Has it not 
always been so? Each of us is probably ready, from his own 
limited observation, to confirm the scholarly statement of Van 
Oosterzee : " One has only to cast a hurried glance upon this 
part of theological literature, from Ambrose to the time of 
Masillon and later, in order to discover how much that is 
human, in the less favorable sense of the word, has in this 
domain cast a blot upon the reputation of sacred eloquence." 
The funeral oration is not the place for criticism, which is an 
exposition of faults as well as virtues. Therefore this is never 
offered. On the other hand, panegyric is painfully distasteful 
to the well-instructed Christian mind ; and yet this is by no 
means uncommon. Here will be a danger, in paying the tribute 



410 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

of Christian affection to our departed brethren, and commend- 
ing their example to the living. We must learn to speak the 
truth in wisdom and love, in the simplicity of Christ. I sup- 
pose that David spoke as poet and sorrowing personal friend, 
rather than as a prophet of God, in that incomparably beauti- 
ful elegy : " Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places! 
. . . Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their 
lives, and in their death they were not divided " (2 Sam. i. 19- 
27). 

But what shall we say of those who have lived and died as 
men and women of the world, making no profession of faith 
in Christ? Shall we assure their friends and acquaintances 
that they have entered into everlasting life? Yes, if that will 
accord with our ordinary pulpit teaching from Sunday to 
Sunday. If not, it is weakness and untruthfulness to offer 
such an assurance now. Make no address at all ; or, if you 
speak, let it be without reference to the deceased. Leave 
them in the hands of Him who made them, and hold your 
peace. Whatever your hopes or fears, it is a time to be silent. 
If this be your rule, it will cause no pain to the bereaved ; 
and especially if, even in the case of faithful Christians, your 
remarks are not panegyrical or oracular, but brief, simple, 
hopeful, Christian. 

The spirit of the accompanying prayer should harmonize 
with that of the address. Let it be for the living,— a prayer; 
and, if part of it be occupied with giving thanks for the life 
of the deceased,— as will often be appropriate,— let this be a 
true and Godward thanksgiving, and not degenerate into a 
eulogistic description of virtues, either fancied or real. 

(2) The missionary work of the church will need to be def- 
initely explained and emphasized. Here the case is extremely 
plain. The church is constitutionally aggressive. It was not 
sent into the world to go softly and keep the peace, but to 
conquer the world unto Christ. It is for mankind, for the 
universal extension of the kingdom of God. In Abraham all 



ORDER-REPETITION-SPECIAL OCCASIONS 411 

the families of the earth were to be blessed. The temple was 
to be a house of prayer for all nations. The Christ was to be 
not only the glory of Israel, but " a light to lighten the Gen- 
tiles." And when any particular church dares to answer, 
" No ; I will use my judgment as to which nations and coun- 
tries shall have this word of salvation," — she is putting herself 
into direct antagonism to the declared purpose of her Lord. 
She is even denying the very fundamental principles of true 
religion as stated and interpreted by Him : " Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy 
neighbor as thyself." 

The duty of the pulpit in this matter will not be fulfilled by 
an occasional missionary sermon. The missionary idea — 
which is, in other words, the idea of the mission of the church 
— must be so appropriated in the preacher's personal experi- 
ence that its tone may be heard and its distincter expressions 
be given continually in his ministry. 

Read " The Great Commission," by Dr. John Harris, " Foreign Mis- 
sions after a Century," by Dr. J. S. Dennis, " Modern Missions: Their 
Evidential Value " (Cole Lectures for 1896), by Bishop C. B. Galloway, 
" The Personal Life of David Livingstone," by Dr. William G. Blaikie, 
" The Autobiography of John G. Paton." 






LECTURE XXIV 



SOCIAL THEMES 



UNDER this title I would group certain ethical themes that 
arise more or less directly out of social relations. The 
preacher's obligation to study them is immediate and urgent. 
It would be hard to overestimate the extent to which they 
involve the welfare of men, both now and hereafter. But 
hardly can they be called by way of distinction " questions 
of the day " ; for in one form or another they have challenged 
the attention of teachers, benefactors, and preachers in all 
ages. 

I think the pulpits with which I am most familiar have not 
fully appreciated these subjects. 

i. Temperance.— This, indeed, is first of all a personal 
matter,— temperance a duty to one's self, intemperance a 
violation of the laws of God in one's own body. Here the 
preacher's opportunity is preeminent, and his responsibility 
proportionately great ; for nearly all that the temperance lec- 
ture may contain is open to him, while his position calls him 
to emphasize the duty and the sin. What texts he may take ! 
— "Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the tem- 
ple of God, him shall God destroy " ; " Let not sin therefore 
reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts 
thereof " ; " Nor drunkards . . . shall inherit the kingdom 
of God " ; " Glorify God therefore in your body." 
412 



SOCIAL THEMES 413 

But intemperance is a sin whose social effects are conspicu- 
ously disastrous. It wages an unceasing war against society. 
Domestic misery, hereditary disease, pauperism, dissension, 
murder, are its proper fruits. Alike in the halls of legislation 
and in the city slums, everywhere, it stands forth, the enemy 
of all reform, the cherished ally of every vice and crime. And, 
on the other hand, the efforts to suppress intemperance are 
made largely through organized agencies,— through legislation 
and voluntary societies. 

Undoubtedly the Christian preacher should feel hearty 
sympathy with these temperance agencies. To offer the plea 
that he cannot approve all their methods would be irrelevant. 
Can he approve all ecclesiastical methods? It is the work and 
the object that demand his recognition and support. If, 
indeed, only one available method of accomplishing the work 
can be shown, his encouragement of the work will carry with 
it the encouragement of the method. 

The day is coming when the saloon, with its appalling de- 
bauchery and crime, will be looked back upon pitifully as one 
of the evils of an imperfect civilization. Though the most 
terrible of all these evils, it has the peculiarity also of being 
easily curable. It may be voted out of existence. The ballots 
of church-members could sound its death-knell to-morrow. 
That it should have been endured as it was by the sovereign 
people of our land will one day be matter of unfeigned aston- 
ishment. That Christian men should have regarded it with 
encouragement, or even with indifference, will be well-nigh 
incredible. That day will come. Just when and how none 
can tell. But shall we not be numbered with those who are 
hastening it on, according to the will of God? Make your 
lifetime contribution, as a minister of Christ's holy evangel, 
to the truly Christian cause of temperance. 

2. Pauperism.— All through the Scriptures the duty of 
almsgiving is inculcated. The unreaped corners of the field 
(Lev. xix. 9), the forgotten sheaf (Deut. xxiv. 19), and the 



414 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

ungleaned olive-trees and vineyards (Deut. xxiv. 20, 21) in 
the land of Israel, were a perpetual object-lesson of kindness 
toward the needy brother. Indiscriminate charity, indeed, — 
scattering alms thoughtlessly to whosoever applies, — is not 
taught. For in such precepts as "Give to him that asketh 
thee," and " Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor," it is the 
principle of benevolence that is enforced, rather than a uni- 
versally applicable form. 

Now let us turn to the teachings of experience. We may 
do good by our alms-deeds ; or we may do harm. If there be 
helplessness, through physical or mental disability, — as in the 
case of children, the aged, the diseased, the crippled, the 
feeble-minded, — our duty is plain : it is the case of the man in 
the parable who fell among robbers and was left wounded and 
half dead. But if we have reason to believe that our gifts 
will be spent on the gratification of depraved appetites, or will 
destroy the incentives to labor, or will weaken all manly reso- 
lution, love to our neighbor will prompt the withholding of the 
hand. In order that we may do nothing? On the contrary, 
for a work more difficult and requiring more self-sacrifice, — 
for implanting principles and wakening aspirations. And this 
requires personal acquaintance, guidance, friendliness. Are 
these mightier than money? As much mightier as a person 
is greater than the contents of a pocket-book. The imperative 
need is " not alms, but a friend." 

The work of the church is character-building, the making 
of men : its charitable help must be so given as to promote 
self-help, and not to enfeeble and pauperize its subjects. 

The economics of the apostle Paul's Christian discipline 
will never be invalidated : " For even when we were with 
you, this we commanded you, If any will not work, neither 
let him eat" (2 Thess. iii. 10). Almsgiving is a sweet and 
blessed privilege, no less a privilege now than when Jesus 
healed the blind beggar, and delivered the parable of the rich 
man and Lazarus. But it is often hard to do good, even 



SOCIAL THEMES 415 

when it seems easiest; and the Christian preacher is also an 
expositor, a scribe of the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, 
while stirring the hearts of men to benevolence, he must also 
be able to point out to them, according to the circumstances 
of his own times, the means and methods. 

3. Trade. — The immense extension of traffic, circulating 
through every neighborhood, in the most intricate and yet 
effective manner, and developing into world-wide commerce, 
is helping to realize the divine intention of universal brother- 
hood in the human race. Ten thousand hands have wrought 
in many regions of the earth to procure the material neces- 
saries and comforts which each of us enjoys in any one day 
of his life. In return we make our little contribution of labor ; 
and its products likewise are distributed far and wide. Great 
are the opportunites for good of the exchangers, the middle- 
men, who carry on this circulation of wealth from hand to 
hand all over the earth ; great, in like manner, is their oppor- 
tunity for evil influence. Perplexing combinations arise, in 
which the moral judgment may easily find itself at fault. 
There are many temptations to falsehood, dishonesty, cove- 
tousness. 

So commerce, in its design so rich in blessings, is continu- 
ally perverted into a curse. The noble steamship sailing from 
Christian England or from Christian America to the unhappy 
millions of the East is laden not only with food for the hungry, 
but with opium, or rum, or evil men, to corrupt and destroy 
the weaker race. 

It would be well if we could have more such sermons as 
that of Horace Bushnell on "The Christian in Trade" (in 
"Sermons on Living Subjects"), or Dr. Chalmers's series of 
" Discourses on the Application of Christianity to the Com- 
mercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life." For in every thickly 
settled community the preacher has to deal from the moral 
point of view with this question. Probably the most promi- 
nent members of his church are tradesmen, and much of the 



416 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

church money comes through mercantile operations. Are the 
merchants of his congregation dealing in goods that destroy 
the bodies and the souls of men? What laws do they observe 
in business, — the laws of Christ, or the customs of the world? 
Misrepresentation of goods, taking advantage of the igno- 
rance or the necessity of customers, extortion, selling on the 
Sabbath, gambling in stocks and provisions, — these things 
cannot be done in the spirit of faith and brotherhood ; they 
are altogether evil, and must be faithfully exposed and re- 
buked. Not, indeed, with wild and undiscriminating denun- 
ciation, not with irritation of feeling ; calmly and on a solid 
basis of fact, reason, conscience, the Word of God. 

And for positive doctrine let us teach men that trade is of 
God ; that, if the merchant have chosen his place rightly, it is 
the place whereunto he has been divinely appointed ; that he 
may do and must do his work, as truly as the Christian min- 
ister or the foreign missionary, in Christ's name ; that, both 
directly by the transfer of goods and indirectly by a Christian 
use of his gains, the work he is doing is no mammon-worship, 
but a ministration to human need. If he accept this truth, 
the surrender of his untruth and idolatries will not leave him 
empty-hearted : he will have deeper inspirations and worthier 
aims ; he will be doing the work of the kingdom of God. 

4. Government. — From the days of the prophets of Israel 
till now the preacher of religion has found himself in impor- 
tant and delicate relations with the civil government. It was 
here the Pharisees laid their choicest snare for our Lord (Matt, 
xxii. 17); and here finally they founded the charge on which 
His condemnation was secured (John xix. 12). It is not 
enough to say, " We must have no political preaching." None, 
certainly, in behalf of political parties, and none in support of 
mere political measures. But what application of moral law 
shall the preacher make to civil law,— to that stupendous social 
organization under which all others, even ecclesiastical socie- 
ties, exist? The question requires more than a negative answer. 



SOCIAL THEMES 417 

Government is universal. Every man is born into some 
tribe or nation. Its power in all earthly relations is supreme. 
The state is sovereign; every man's property, liberty, life, is in 
its hands. Is government, then, of God? Most assuredly; 
and not only so, but its highest end is moral (Rom. xiii. 1-8). 
Even Aristotle, without the light of the Gospel, could see that 
" a state truly deserving the name must be governed by such 
wholesome laws as to place a happy and virtuous life within 
the reach of all its citizens, and thus, by cultivating the better 
parts of men, raise them in the scale of being." The govern- 
ment deserves from its citizens a cheerful and loyal obedience : 
disloyalty, anarchy, lynching, are assaults on the very founda- 
tions of society. Forms of government — from the unlimited 
monarchy up to the pure democracy— are indeed of human 
wisdom and appointment. With them the preacher, as such, 
has nothing to do. But he cannot follow the example of our 
Lord and of His prophets and apostles without proclaiming 
the divine origin and authority of civil government. The 
better the Christian, the truer the citizen and the nobler the 
patriot. 

Suppose, now, the laws of the land or their administration, 
either through omission or commission, should be immoral. 
Suppose, for example, the authors of obscene literature should 
be permitted to publish their filthy imaginations and send 
them through the mails, to defile the youth of the country; 
suppose lotteries should be in operation under legal sanction ; 
suppose the government should license the drinking-saloon, 
and thus help to perpetuate the crimes and woes of intemper- 
ance ; suppose a municipal administration, through bribery and 
corruption, should wink at the violation of the law enacted for 
the moral protection of the community, — must the pulpits be 
silent? The men who are filling their pockets out of the vices 
and miseries of their fellows, fattening off their ruin, will hasten 
to say, " Yes ; preach the Gospel, sing and pray, and let poli- 
tics alone." Some timid, trouble-hating Christians will join in 



418 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the request. But the Word of God to His prophet-preachers 
has always been, " To whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt 
go, and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak." 
Be sure of your ground, be sure of your spirit, have no hob- 
bies, do not fight as one that beateth the air, speak the truth 
in love — but speak it. How can you preach the Gospel — if 
by this great word is meant the revelation of God in Christ — 
and let immorality alone? If some men have misnamed either 
morality or immorality politics, it is not for the teacher of re- 
ligion to fall into such confusion of ideas. Christianity is not 
narrower in its sphere than the whole moral life of man. It 
has to do with the state no less truly than with the family. It 
must be applied not only to individuals, but to the organized 
life of society in all its forms. Doubtless there is danger of 
political preaching ; but the danger of a time-serving, or a fas- 
tidious, or a churchy, or an ethically feeble ministration of the 
Gospel is considerably greater. 

5. Industrial Conditions and Movements. — Here and 
there appears a rich man ; but the mass of mankind live from 
hand to mouth, and are very poor. The industrial conditions 
under which their labor is performed are, in many cases, op- 
pressive and severe. Not so severe as formerly. The course 
of legislation among English-speaking people, for more than 
half a century, has been directed steadily in their favor,— on 
such subjects, for example, as child-labor, employers' liability, 
sanitation, inspection of mines, debt, education. Their em- 
ployers are somewhat more disposed to look upon them in their 
true character as men, not simply as " hands." Their material 
and educational advantages are many degrees greater than in 
the last century, and the average of life is longer. But on the 
other hand, with increasing intelligence, their needs, aspira- 
tions, and demands have proportionally increased. 

Besides, the very progress of discovery and invention, with its 
consequent increase of wealth in the hands of all classes of the 
community, has incidentally wrought certain serious disad- 



SOCIAL THEMES 419 

vantages to the poor. The thoroughgoing application of the 
principle of division of labor, restricting each man's operations 
to a few simple tasks, renders the workman comparatively help- 
less when thrown out of employment. Through incompetent 
management or unforeseen disaster, failures and panics occur. 
From these, among other causes, arise destitution, tramps, in- 
surrections of labor. So we have the conflict between wages 
and profits, between the laborer and the employer. Many 
social and industrial theories are in the air, — some promulgated 
by self-seekers, and some by unselfish idealists ; much good 
work, and much that is evil and damaging, is going on. Amid 
it all vast fortunes are multiplying, and side by side with them 
abject poverty is persisting in the land. 

You will have to read volumes, instead of half a score of 
sentences, to see and appreciate the situation as a Christian 
minister should. If I may put you in the right line of inquiry 
by calling attention to a few salient points, I shall be satisfied. 

(i) The church has not done what she could for the toiling 
masses in their effort to better their condition. What love did 
the Church of England show them, with all her wealth and 
national influence, three quarters of a century ago, when " in- 
fants five years old were allowed to work in the cotton fac- 
tories from five in the morning until eight at night " ; when, 
in the coal-mines of Lancashire and Yorkshire, " the forms of 
women and girls were crippled into every distortion by the 
weights of coal they had to carry, and their moral degradation 
was akin to their physical " ; when " the brutalities inflicted on 
juvenile labor were officially stigmatized as too terrible for 
description"? To what extent are the churches of our own 
country fulfilling the law of Christ toward the toiling and suf- 
fering poor? It is stated, on what seems to be good authority, 
that the neglect of the church and its ordinances is increasing 
among the wage-workers, and in this class only. It is un- 
questionable that vast multitudes of them, both in city and in 
country, are habitual absentees from the preaching of the 



420 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Gospel. Even that Christian denomination which has won 
the high encomium of being " the church of the people" must 
acknowledge that the common people do not find their way to 
her chapels and hear her preachers as once they did. Why is 
it? Is such failure inevitable? 

Let the Salvation Army bear witness. Criticise its methods, 
if you will, but hear its answer. It has done a work beside 
which the gathering of respectable wage-workers into the 
church would seem to be easy. Its chosen parish has been 
the slum, its special objects of effort the outcast and the 
criminal. Beginning with one man, poor in purse, feeble in 
health, without the sympathy of the church of which he was 
a member, in twenty years it has so extended its power and 
influence as to number the attendants upon its meetings by 
millions. Let its refuges and lodging-houses, the food it gives, 
the baths it provides, the work it supplies, the ungloved hand 
it offers to the leprous bodies and souls of men, the Christ-like 
heart that explains all,— let these speak, and let us sit at its 
feet and learn what it is to love our brother-man for whom 
Christ died. 

(2) Nevertheless Christian churches have done far more, 
directly and indirectly, than any other organization in this line 
of work. From the beginning of the Gospel they have been 
the great power that makes for human brotherhood. And 
however the churches may have come short, it is true that 
Christianity is at the heart of all true social advancement and 
reform. Even those who in their blindness reject the Christian 
faith are largely indebted to it for that growth of altruism, or 
neighborliness, which has made social improvement possible 
in Christendom. 

The Author and Object of our faith is the Son of man. To 
Him no hope or fear of the human soul, no joy or pain, no in- 
terest, is foreign. " He is not ashamed to call them brethren." 
Before going forth as the Teacher of mankind, His occupation 
was that of a Galilean wood-worker. " He knew what was in 



SOCIAL THEMES 42l 

man " ; and He died for the world's redemption. What have 
we in His teachings? No mad crusade against the rights 
of property, but certainly much concerning its duties. No 
word against the institution of civil government, but the rec- 
ognition of its true source and significance (John xix. n). 
Neither has Jesus put the slightest barrier in the way of such 
governmental regulation of property rights as may be demanded 
by the general good. Did Jesus teach self-love? Yes ; but 
coordinate with it in authority, neighborliness, love to others. 
One God and Father in heaven ; one neighborhood and fra- 
ternity of men on earth ; the infinite worth of even the un- 
worthiest human soul ; the sacredness of the body as the organ 
of a spiritual being ; wealth a solemn trust, to be discharged 
with equal good will toward ourselves and toward our fellow- 
men, under the one Owner and Lord ; poverty, like any other 
affliction, glorified with heavenly consolations and promises ; 
service the true nobility, the great and gifted becoming, more 
than any others, the servants of all ; Himself the supreme Ex- 
ample, the serving King, who " came not to be ministered to, 
but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many," — 
these are His teachings, and this was His life. What influence 
were they sent into the world to exert? What effects, as a 
matter of fact, have they produced in the world even until now? 
The older political economy set forth the principle of com- 
petition as necessarily dominant in the industrial world. As if, 
in this sphere, the one supreme law is and must be, Thou shalt 
love thyself! Moreover, we were told that it is best for the 
industrial interests of the community, as a whole, that this 
should be so. But the incompleteness of this doctrine has 
been clearly shown. Unrestricted competition means unre- 
stricted ruin to very many of our race. Besides, men do not 
act from self-interest alone in any sphere of life. There is 
another equally fundamental principle, — regard for others. 
And these two principles are not contrary the one to the other ; 
both are necessary to the well-being of society. So not only 



422 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

has legislation undertaken to help the classes that are too feeble 
to compete, but the great economic force of cooperation has 
come to be recognized side by side with competition. But 
what is this? Only an application of the law of Christ: 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Only an uncon- 
scious recognition of the fact that in business and industry, as 
in the whole of human life, the Lord Jesus Christ is King. 

" Fraternity," says Rae, in his " Contemporary Socialism," 
" is undoubtedly a Christian idea, come into the world with 
Christ, spread abroad in it by Christian agencies, and belong- 
ing to the ideal that hovers perpetually over Christian society. 
It has already produced social changes of immense conse- 
quence, and has force in it, we cannot doubt, to produce many 
more in the future." It is sober truth to affirm that the solu- 
tion of the labor problem, being essentially moral, is to be 
found in the kingdom of God ; and that the one word that ex- 
presses it best is the Cross of Christ. 

(3) So the pulpit has its mission of sympathy and direction to 
both individual and organized effort in behalf of the laboring poor. 
Namely, it has Jesus to preach, — the doctrine, the life, the 
person of the Son of man, in all their manifold applications 
to the life and work of mankind. 

(4) And to better the condition of the poor, physically, intel- 
lectually, and morally, is to hasten the coming of the kingdom of 
heaven upon earth. Everywhere in nature and in humanity the 
lower is preparatory to the higher. The cleansing of poison 
from the blood is a step toward the sanctification of the soul. 
The school-house is on the way to the church. Under what 
terrible obstructions must Christian character develop in many 
of the homes, neighborhoods, and work-places of the poor! 
True, the opposite extreme of the social scale, with its enor- 
mous accumulations of wealth, and its multiplied luxuries, is 
also sadly unfavorable to the Christian life. " Verily I say unto 
you, It is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
heaven." Unhappily the rich do not always hear from the 



SOCIAL THEMES 423 

pulpit the truth they need : they, too, are neglected. But the 
greater and more hopeful problem is that of the toiling poor. 
Houses large enough for the demands of health and decency ; 
more sunshine and fresh air ; purer physical surroundings ; less 
dreariness and drudgery ; more knowledge ; opportunities for 
the children, entirely irresponsible for their situation, to get a 
fair start in life ; all possible encouragement to self-reliance and 
self-help, — these are not, indeed, the very kingdom of God, 
but they are the outer provinces of it, the preparation of the 
way of the Lord. The signs that Messiah had come in the 
days of old were twofold : beneficent physical wonders and 
the preaching of the Gospel to the poor (Matt. xi. 5). The 
same are now, and doubtless always will be, the signs of the 
coming kingdom. 

It is the idea of ecclesiastical organization for this complete 
Christian service to men, in their lower as well as their higher 
interests, that the recently developed " institutional church " 
stands for. 

Such are some of the social topics that will claim a place, as 
occasion may suggest, in your teaching. Others will readily 
occur to you : e.g., the family, the school, amusements, justice 
and kindness to animals, and so on. Inform yourselves on 
them all ; show indifference to none ; rightly divide the word 
of truth, and make full proof here of your ministry. 

To excuse ourselves from taking interest, personal and min- 
isterial, in the social relations of men, on the ground that our 
work is the saving of individual souls, would be to mistake our 
commission. We are sent to proclaim the kingdom of God ; 
and surely this implies the Christianizing of all human rela- 
tions, pursuits, and institutions,— the family, the state, trade, 
industry, amusements, all. 

Besides, the two objects may best be attained together, — the 
salvation of the individual and the Christian reconstruction of 
society. They are promotive of each other. Why should 
General Booth give so much thought and labor to a scheme 



424 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

for the physical improvement of the crushed and degraded 
poor of England? Why not confine his attention strictly to 
revival meetings among them? He has told us the reason: 
" No doubt it is good for men to climb unaided out of the 
whirlpool on to the rock of deliverance in the very presence 
of the temptations that have hitherto mastered them. But, 
alas! with many this seems to be utterly impossible. . . . My 
only hope for the permanent deliverance of mankind from 
misery, either in this world or the next, is the regeneration or 
remaking of the individual by the power of the Holy Ghost 
through Jesus Christ. But in providing for the relief of tem- 
poral misery, I reckon that I am only making it easy where it 
is now difficult, and possible where it is now all but impossi- 
ble, for men and women to find their way to the Cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 

To what instrumentality has been committed chiefly the 
evangelizing of the world? To converted souls, the salt of 
the earth, the light of the world. On the other hand, what is 
the most conspicuous barrier in the way of access to uncon- 
verted souls, and the most conspicuous danger to the newly 
converted? Unchristian surroundings. One of the best 
means of replacing sinful amusements with healthful recrea- 
tions, of closing the saloon, of making the conditions of life 
easier for the poor, is to get souls converted. The renewed 
heart will create for itself a new world. True ; and one of the 
best means of getting souls converted is to displace sinful 
amusements, to close the saloon, to make the conditions of life 
easier for the poor. The new world will be very favorable to 
the renewal of the heart. Between the man and his environ- 
ment there is perpetual interaction. 

Read " The Temperance Movement," by the Hon. H. W. Blair, " The 
Temperance Century," by the Rev. W. F. Crafts, " The New Era," by 
Dr. Josiah Strong, " Ruling Ideas of the Present Age," by Dr. Wash- 
ington Gladden, " Christians and the Theater," by Dr. J. M. Buckley, 
" Better Not," by Bishop J. H. Vincent. 



LECTURE XXV 

THE PREACHER BEFORE THE CHILDREN 

I PRO POSE to speak to you to-day about your ministry to 
the young people. 
I. The Opportunity. 

It is not that of the parent. It is not the opportunity of 
speaking a timely word to the children of your charge individ- 
ually, at their homes and elsewhere. Nor is it that of an 
instructor of catechumens. It is a special opportunity of 
teaching and preaching in the congregation, that we have to 
consider. 

Just a word concerning two incidental advantages in this 
ministration to children. 

It will react most favorably upon you as a preacher. We 
presume upon the conscientious respectfulness of our grown- 
up hearers. They will listen to much that does not interest 
them— and are constantly required to do so. They will en- 
dure sermons that are feebly and coldly read in their presence. 
They will probably not laugh or stare at the performances of 
the would-be orator. But with the young people— at least 
with the "little ones" — the case is considerably different. 
Address them obscurely, or in a monotone, or in a scream, or 
with prosaic attempts at flights of imagination,— and you will 
not only fail to hold their attention, but will plainly see that 
you have failed. You must have something to say, and must 
say it simply, naturally, earnestly, or not get a hearing. But 
425 



426 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

these are necessary qualities in all really successful preaching. 
Learn to interest the young, and you are pretty certain not to 
prove uninteresting to anybody. In a word, we can stand 
before no congregation that is likely to be as helpful to us 
homiletically as a congregation of children. 

Besides, to serve the child will give you an open way, as 
nothing else can, to the heart of the parent, — of the father as 
well as the mother, of outsiders as well as church-members, of 
the most highly cultivated and the least instructed. This will 
always be so ; it is not an accident, but a law of the parental 
nature. Whatever is done toward the child, either of kindness 
or injury, is done toward the parent : in the oneness of love 
they are one. No ; such a statement is inadequate : the kind- 
ness is strangely sweetened and the injury embittered when 
they come to the parent through the child. 

Said the mother of a young preacher, bidding him good-by 
as he left home for the church in which his ordination to the 
Christian ministry was to take place: "You are going to be 
ordained to-day, and you will be told your duty by those who 
know it far better than I do ; but I wish you to remember one 
thing which perhaps they may not tell you, — remember that 
whenever you lay your hand on a child's head you are laying 
it on its mother's heart." 

But our concern is chiefly with the young people themselves. 

They constitute about one half the whole number of our 
hearers. 

Their possibilities of Christian character and usefulness are 
greater than those of any other class of persons. They have 
lost less time. It may be said that the conversion of a child 
is not so striking a sign of divine power as the conversion of 
an adult ; but the outcome, both possible and probable, is 
greater. Bad habits have not so marred the nature as to in- 
duce infirmities and dangers that will persist unto the end of 
life. Terrible is it for any soul, converted or unconverted, to 
have formed a bad habit ; for, though the habit be subdued, 



THE PREACHER BEFORE THE CHILDREN 427 

the tendency to reassert itself remains. In the child's case a 
freer nature and a whole life may be given to God. Certain 
common and formidable obstacles to the truth in the heart of 
an adult do not exist to the same extent, and sometimes not 
at all, in the child-heart,— such as pride, sensuality, unbelief, 
prejudice, false shame, worldliness. Ideas and imaginings 
have not become convictions ; dispositions, good or bad, have 
not yet hardened into character. And surely to lay out our 
strength on the formed mind, and neglect the mind that is just 
forming, is madness. 

One wide and effectual door of access to the children is 
the Sunday-school. Think of its million teachers and eight 
million scholars in our land. Six miles from where we are now 
assembled the first feeble beginning was made, — by Francis 
Asbury, in the house of Thomas Crenshaw, in the year 1786. 
A time-stained volume which I had in my hand to-day, " Min- 
utes of the Methodist Conferences Held in America from 1773 
to 1794 Inclusive," in its record of Conference proceedings 
for the year 1790, has the following answer to a question as 
to what shall be done for the instruction of poor children: 
" Let us labor, as the heart and soul of one man, to establish 
Sunday-schools in or near the places of public worship." About 
the same time such schools appeared, under various denomi- 
national auspices, in different parts of the country, — apparently 
quite unconnected with one another, save in their common 
origin in the great Sunday-school movement which had re- 
cently begun in England. 

What is the true conception of this great institution and its 
work? It is the church discipling the children. These million 
teachers are laymen and women ; but the chief teacher, in 
every case, bearing this relation both to them and their schol- 
ars, is the pastor under whose care the school is conducted. 
So the pastor's relation to the school is unmistakable : the 
leadership of the work is in his hands. It is his responsibility, 
his opportunity. 



428 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

What shall we say concerning the attendance of Sunday- 
school children upon preaching and public worship? Many 
of them may be seen returning from church while their elders 
are going thither ; and their absence from the congregation has 
caused much anxiety and elicited searching inquiries, on the 
part of thoughtful Christian men, as to the soundness of our 
present-day methods. Now let us see. It will not do to say 
that the children returning from Sunday-school have not been 
in attendance upon the worship of God and the teaching of 
His Word. These sacred ordinances have been brought to 
them, in the house of God, in such forms as seem well adapted 
to their present state of knowledge and experience. If the 
pastor does not believe this to be true, it is for him to make it 
true. See that the young people in your Sunday-school have 
the Gospel opened to their understandings and pressed home 
upon their wills. Hold a teachers' meeting ; and preach 
through that. If superintendent and teachers be still in- 
efficient, do what lies in your power to supply their lack of 
service. If they be faithful, do your part as a fellow-worker 
with them. Take time from pulpit preparation, if need be ; 
and if the children will not come to you in the audience- 
room, go to them in the lecture-room. Read such a book as 
Armstrong's " Five-minute Sermons to Children " — which 
might better be called three-minute sermons — and learn that it 
is practicable, if desirable, to have preaching in the Sunday- 
school. The pastor in whose church the children are gathered 
together every Sunday for worship and instruction condemns 
himself in the complaint that they do not hear the Word of 
God. 

But in point of fact most preachers have children in their 
congregations ; and some preachers have a great many. Do 
they pay them a due amount of attention? Do they think of 
them sympathetically in preparing and preaching the sermon, 
and in conducting the devotional exercises? Fifty years ago 
Dr. Archibald Alexander gave it as his opinion that the ordi- 






THE PREACHER BEFORE THE CHILDREN 429 

nary preaching of that day did the children "no manner of 
good." Henry Ward Beecher said, " I do not remember that 
I understood a single thing my father preached about till I was 
ten years old ; and my father certainly was a good preacher." 
Has there been a marked improvement in the quality of adapt- 
edness to children in the preaching of the present generation? 
Probably so ; but much that is entirely practicable remains to 
be done. 

Shall we be content, then, in the case of such services as are 
commonly rendered in the congregation, to have the children 
attend the Sunday-school only? By no means. Shall we put 
it upon the consciences of parents to exert authority, if need- 
ful, to bring their children with them to hear the word of 
preaching? Yes ; as well as to bring them with them to Sun- 
day-school. If the authority be exercised with a good mea- 
sure of common sense, considerateness, and sympathy, we need 
have no doubt that the benefits will more than counterpoise 
the dangers. Even under the most unfavorable circumstances 
the young and partly unwilling hearer will get some sense of 
sacred things from the congregational prayer and praise, some 
word of truth from the sermon ; and, in the habit-forming 
period of life, he will form the inestimably valuable habit of 
church attendance. 

One word more. I have said that the Sunday-school is the 
church discipling the children ; but that is not its whole idea. At 
the beginning it was an institution for taking neglected poor chil- 
dren out of the street, and with paid teachers instructing them 
in reading and writing. Very soon the work developed into 
that of the voluntary instruction of the children in the Scrip- 
tures, and their conversion to Christ. But there have always 
been classes of adults in the school, often composed of the most 
intelligent persons in the congregation. And now we are com- 
ing to see that the Sunday-school, according to its true idea, is 
the church organized as a Bible school, all together studying the 
Scriptures. It is the Bible service. I have given you sufficient 



430 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

proof of my approval of the modern sermon, — an elaborate and 
continuous discourse, with persuasion to Christian discipleship 
as its great characteristic. But instruction, which comes before 
persuasion, is best given in the form of question and answer ; 
and this work of instruction in its most effective form is the 
characteristic feature of the Sunday-school. We all need both. 
Let us agitate the question of the absence of grown people 
from our service of Christian teaching. In the Sunday-school 
in which I have the honor to be a teacher more than half the 
membership are men and women,— some of its scholars over 
sixty years of age. In a few instances the entire membership 
of the church may be found engaged, either as teachers or 
scholars, in this service. And this is now our ideal : the 
whole Sunday-school in the congregation, and the whole con- 
gregation in the Sunday-school. 

II. TheConditionsof Success in Preaching to Children. 

i. The first is the adoption of good methods. For though 
it is true that the best method is ineffective without the right 
man behind it, the same thing is certainly not less true of the 
haphazard attempt. 

(i) I have known the plan tried of having a ten-minute 
sermon to the children, just before the sermon to the rest of 
the congregation. It seems to me unlikely to succeed. It 
makes the service as a whole too long. It splits up the preach- 
ing into two portions, separate and distinct and yet placed in 
juxtaposition to each other, — a sermonette and a sermon. It 
requires each class of hearers to listen to what was not in- 
tended for them. Or it sends the children home by them- 
selves at the end of their part of the service. There must be 
some better way. 

(2) Have some reference to the young people in your or- 
dinary preaching. Call their attention to such thoughts as 
may seem to be of special interest to them. Not, indeed, I 
would venture to suggest, in the phraseology that is sometimes 
employed: " Now, children, this is for you " ; " Here is some- 



THE PREACHER BEFORE THE CHILDREN 4=31 

thing that you can understand," and so on. Expressions of this 
sort give the preacher the appearance of condescension— of 
stepping down at intervals to the child's level — and seem to 
imply that the larger part of the sermon is for the older people 
only. Why ask the child to sit still and listen, if that part also 
is not for him? Surely we might devise some more skilful prefa- 
tory word. We may find good examples in Charles Kingsley's 
" Village Sermons." Now and then he directly addresses the 
young, in the most simple and unaffected manner : " And you, 
young men and women, consider — if God has given you manly 
courage and high spirits and strength and beauty — think" 
— "Young people! God has given you much. As a young 
man I speak to you" — "Think now, my boys, when you 
are at your work, how all things may put you in mind of God, 
if you do but choose" — "Oh, young men and women, boys 
and girls, believe those words." 

Do not forget to pray for the young people in the pulpit. 
Have some regard to them, also, in the selection of the hymns. 
Do not let it be said that seldom is a hymn announced which 
the young people know and can sing. 

(3) Now and then — or, what is better, periodically — preach 
distinctively to the children. In some churches this is done 
every Sunday evening, the sermon being more or less catechet- 
ical, and there being no other evening service. This solves 
the question, which is attracting earnest consideration in some 
places, as to what the character of the second service on the 
Lord's day should be. Or it may be deemed advisable to have a 
monthly " children's church." And why should this not take 
the place of the regular Sunday morning service? Give it the 
most favorable hour. It is worthy ; and you yourself need to 
be at your best. Besides, the sermon would probably be as 
serviceable and acceptable to the older people as your ordi- 
nary preaching ; perhaps more so. A certain hearer of Dr. 
Richard Newton represents, I believe, a larger class of minds 
than would be generally supposed : he was seldom present 



432 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

except to hear the monthly sermon to children, and when asked 
the reason replied, " I understand these sermons best." 

Even those who " understand " all your preaching will feel 
the charm of simplified Christian doctrine. An old professor 
of natural science once told me that he read the Science Primers 
with pleasure. The truths they teach, though familiar truths 
to him, brought fresh enjoyment, appearing in their simplest 
forms of statement. 

Ask yourself at the end of any half-year, " What attention 
have I given in the last six months to the children? How 
many sermons have I preached to them ? " 

(4) Have questions and answers. This, as we have seen, 
is the didactic as contradistinguished from the oratorical 
method. The perfect example of it is in the discourses of 
our Lord. Would it be well to employ this method in our 
modern and Western congregations? At least it may be done 
in the congregation of children. Was there ever a more elo- 
quent preacher in our country than John Summerfield? And 
we are told that he not only delighted in preaching to children, 
— giving them a monthly sermon during his pastorate in New 
York, — but introduced " almost an entirely new style of preach- 
ing to them, that of question and answer, giving him scope, 
and keeping up the attention of his little auditors." But tact 
will be required, and moderation must be observed. Do not 
abuse this privilege of interlocution by over-use. 

2. Careful specific preparation. It is harder to interest chil- 
dren than grown-up hearers. Evidently so ; because our 
customary forms of thought and expression are those of the 
maturer mind. Here, doubtless, is one chief reason — whatever 
others, real or fancied, may appear— why so little of it com- 
paratively is done. We shrink from it as a difficult undertak- 
ing ; and begin to excuse ourselves on the plea of a lack of 
gifts and adaptation. 

The true course is to give this difficult duty all the more 
earnest attention. Trumbull, in his "Yale Lectures on the 



THE PREACHER BEFORE THE CHILDREN 433 

Sunday-school," has collected the testimony of a number of 
prominent preachers to children — such as Drs. Todd, Newton, 
J. L. McKee, and Samuel Cox— to the effect that their sermons 
to children required more careful preparation than any of their 
other discourses. Dr. Richard Newton, who has preached 
and published so many sermons of this kind, says that none of 
them has cost him less than " four or five mornings of hard 
work from breakfast to dinner." And Dr. McKee has said, 
" If I were going to preach a sermon to the Congress of the 
United States I should not have anything like the apprehen- 
sion that I should have were I going to preach to the children 
here in this city." These men depended on no happy knack, 
no impromptu power; but were willing to labor for the ac- 
quisition of easy, telling, childlike speech. Expect success in 
this as in every undertaking of your ministry to cost you pa- 
tient, persistent effort ; but doubt not it will be worth many 
times its cost. 

Give more than ordinary attention to the selection of the 
text. Try to have it apt, short, rememberable. Then, just 
as in the sermon to adults, there should be a clearly defined 
outline, a solid basis of instruction, and a plain, pointed ap- 
plication. Do not imagine that doctrinal teaching must 
needs be uninteresting. On the contrary, the child-mind is 
eager for knowledge ; it will find pleasure in great facts, and 
even in great truths, when not expressed in an "unknown 
tongue." Excessive attempts to amuse, or a mere wish-wash 
of feeble story-telling, will prove not only profitless, but un- 
acceptable. 

So, likewise, will a mock simplicity of style, an insipid, pa- 
lavering mode of expression. Do not be childish. Your youth- 
ful hearer must feel that you are neither using strange, big 
words, on the one hand, nor " talking down " to him, on the 
other. A wise parent will show his child the greatest possible 
respect in the home. At the table, for example, he will not 
say to a visitor, "Will you have some fruit? " and then to his 



434 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

bright-eyed and keen-eared boy of ten or twelve, " Do you 
want some? " So with the tactful speaker. He will show 
genuine respect for the youngest human soul before him. 

3. Sympathy. Without this it is impossible to put yourself 
in touch with the natures you are dealing with. Indeed, you 
cannot so much as understand them. Love only can draw 
near enough to know. Now you may feebly affect the tone 
and manner of sympathy ; or you may have the reality without 
sufficiently allowing it to come out in your speech. Have it, 
and let it fully appear. Be genuinely interested in young 
people. Never forget that you were once a boy. Enter into 
their joys, their plans, their difficulties and sorrows. Says one 
of the best of preachers to children, the Rev. J. Reid Howatt, 
" Once we lose the child within us, we grope in vain to reach 
the children around us." 

But there will also be a deeper and more chastened tone in 
this fellow-feeling with the young. Think of what lies before 
them. They go out not knowing whither they go. 

" O little feet that such long years 

Must journey on through hopes and fears, 
Must ache and bleed beneath your load!" 

Think of their capacities, just beginning to be strangly revealed 
to them. Every child-face is prophetic. In the young souls 
of to-day lies germinant the whole world's future. And then 
out of the vicissitudes of this life each of them must depart 
into eternity. Shall they be prepared? Let us draw near to 
them, in all our teaching and preaching, in tender, human, 
Christ-like sympathy. And by the way of the heart we may 
reach both the reason and the will. Gain their confidence, 
both in and out of the pulpit, and you may hope to win them 
to the divine Friend and Saviour. 

4. Vivacity. Childhood is all astir with life. The cup is 
overflowing. To a person who would undertake to follow the 
movements, physical and mental, of an average child through 



THE PREACHER BEFORE THE CHILDREN 435 

the course of a day, its activity and endurance would be sur- 
prising. The world is new, existence is sweet, and the young 
explorers are ever on the alert. Accordingly, the speaker who 
would quiet their restless bodies and capture their light-footed 
fancies must needs be childlike in the expression of his own 
more powerful life. Nothing less will prove attractive and 
masterful with them. Not that a noisy or a precipitate utter- 
ance is demanded. The manner of speech may be deliberate. 
But deliberation is not dullness; and from first to last there 
must be spirit, promptness, movement. 

5. Imaginative power. I hardly know how to emphasize 
this more than I have already done in other connections. But, 
for an evident reason, it is here of preeminent importance. 
The imagination is one of the earliest and most rapid in de- 
velopment of all the powers of the mind. The faculties of 
abstract thinking and close reasoning lag far behind, and even 
to the end of life rarely overtake the imagination. Accord- 
ingly, it makes up a large part of the child's mental power and 
activity. Take advantage of it to convey the truth, by means 
of description and illustration, to his mind and heart. 

Your texts and subjects themselves will often be illustrative ; 
such as Bible metaphors, parables, incidents, characters. But, 
whatever the text, the sermon must set forth the truth largely 
in imaginative forms of speech. 

And none will come closer home to the youthful mind, or 
exert a more salutary influence, than personal examples. 
Everybody feels the force of them. People are interested in 
and affected by one another. It is said to be a rule of news- 
paper reporters to introduce into their correspondence as many 
names of persons as possible. Indeed, what would the news, 
which young and old alike delight in,— what would it be with 
the personal element left out? Emphatically is it u'ue of chil- 
dren that in no other way, apart from their own experience, 
can moral truth be made real to them so effectually as by its 
appearance in human lives. "What is holiness? " was asked 



436 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

of a little girl in a mission church. " Why, holiness is the way 
Mr. lives," was the quick reply. 

Get examples from the Bible and from your own observa- 
tion. Get them also from histories, biographies, and children's 
books ; but not from mere " goody " books. Let the men 
and women and especially the children whom you hold up as 
examples of good and evil be natural and representative char- 
acters, — not self-conscious, morbid, or impossible. 

It is also to be borne in mind that in preaching to children 
the not uncommon tendency to overdo illustrations is very 
strong. Object-lessons are interesting and easily remembered ; 
but certainly the rule for their employment is not, the more the 
better. Here is a fair example of the recommendations I have 
seen as to the use of this class of illustrative material, in some 
excellent manuals: "Another lecture on 'Ye are the light of 
the world ' might be illustrated with different varieties of lights. 
One alone, and one with a reflector (a consistent life) behind 
it. A dark lantern, having light within, but showing little 
without. A beautiful but dim candle. A homely but power- 
ful one. Danger-signals. Lights for protection of a house, 
others for illumination. So with shades, transparent, others 
translucent." I should think that fewer illustrative objects 
would make a better moral impression than so large and (per- 
haps) entertaining a display. Note the character of our Lord's 
object-lessons : " Show Me a penny. Whose image and 
superscription hath it?" (Luke xx. 24); "Ye would say unto 
this sycamine-tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou planted in 
the sea; and it would have obeyed you" (Luke xvii. 6). 
Violate the law of simplicity anywhere, and the loss will be 
greater than the gain. 

It is unquestionably so with verbal illustrations. You will 
be strongly tempted to employ them for their own sake. But 
if the illustration you have at command is not applicable, show 
that you have it at command by leaving it out. Or if it is not 
needed, leave it out. Above all, do not allow the illustration 



THE PREACHER BEFORE THE CHILDREN 437 

to defeat its own object by so occupying attention with itself 
as to cast the truth to be illustrated into the background. 
" This fault," as Dr. Broadus has reminded us, " occurs very 
frequently in speaking to children. There is a mere succession 
of stories or pictures, which teach nothing, impress nothing, 
and, save as idle entertainment, are nothing." My little girl 
came home from a meeting some weeks ago, and told me, 
" Mr. Jones made a speech." "And what did he say? " "He 
said that when he was a little boy he and his sister were going 
out to cut pine-knots, and in getting over the fence his sister 
cut his hand with the hatchet, and he has the mark there still." 
"And what did he tell you that for? what did he mean by 
it? " She had no idea that the story was intended to teach 
anything. Her own fault, perhaps ; certainly the speaker ought 
to have been careful that it should not be his. It will do the 
student no good to keep looking at his lamp ; he even prefers 
that it should be set behind him : what he wishes is, by the 
aid of the lamplight, to see the printed page. 

6. Moral earnestness. Not sternness or gloominess. Such 
a misrepresentation of religion is peculiarly out of place before 
an audience of children. Be cheerful; kindle a smile upon 
their faces. But, on the other hand, do not forget that to 
please is for the sake of edification, not for its own sake. The 
fact that it is often difficult to hold the child's attention and 
induce him to hear us gladly may incline us to feel satisfied 
when this object is accomplished, and thus to quit before we 
are done. 

With the dawn of intelligence and affection there is like- 
wise moral feeling. Hence you may appeal with confidence 
to the conscience and religious nature of even your youngest 
hearers. Put them to the test ; ask whether it is right to speak 
the truth or to tell falsehoods, to be kind or to be cruel, to 
obey God or to disobey, to love the Saviour or to forget Him. 
No uncertain answers will be given. Rest assured the Spirit 
of God is beforehand with you in the child's heart. Recall 



438 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

your own earliest experiences. Were they all unmoral and 
unspiritual? Can you remember a time when the thought of 
God did not inspire you with solemn awe, and the knowledge 
of right and wrong awaken some sense of personal account- 
ability? 

If whosoever receives the kingdom of God must receive it 
as a little child, surely the child himself may receive it. You 
will make it your aim, if truly in earnest, in every sermon to 
teach some truth of the kingdom of God. You will be satis- 
fied only with seeing evidences that the young people of your 
charge are in the way of Christian experience and life. 

7. There is great need of knowledge and discrimination — 
of true spiritual wisdom— in this ministry to young souls. 

Do not assume that all who are not yet full members of the 
church are unregenerate. Many Christians cannot recall the 
time when they did not try to obey the Saviour. What manner 
of Christians are they? Superficial in experience, unsteady 
in character, unfruitful in life? Usually you will find none 
better in the church. The founder of the school of the 
prophets is their representative in the Old Testament, and the 
forerunner of Christ in the New Testament. Of such as the 
little child, notwithstanding its depravity, is the kingdom of 
heaven. Only by wilful sinning can the child come into con- 
demnation. To bring it up "in the nurture and admonition 
of the Lord " is to teach and persuade it to pray and trust and 
obey, to turn to God penitently for the guidance and cleans- 
ing it may need every day (just as the mature Christian does). 
O that such training were the rule and not the exception in 
our homes! When may the regenerating grace of God be re- 
ceived by the child? As soon as the child can think, feel, act, 
morally. Is this grace withheld? If John the Baptist was 
filled with the Holy Spirit from his birth, may we not believe 
a measure of that same Spirit to be given to all our children? 
Indeed, is there not indubitable proof of it? Surely if the 
parent and Christian teacher, either directly or indirectly, in- 



THE PREACHER BEFORE THE CHILDREN 439 

struct the children to look forward to a crisis of conversion at 
some suitable time in the future, it is inconsistent to teach 
them to pray now. For prayer is not the language of delib- 
erate sin, of impenitence, of the unregenerate nature ; it is the 
language of penitence, of faith, of nearness to God. From 
earliest childhood we may hear and heed the voice from 
heaven. If all the children of Christian parents were brought 
up faithfully and practically in this belief, very many would 
never know the habit of ungodliness. 

You may suppose some such child-Christians to be in your 
congregation. Preach appropriately to them. But you may 
also safely assume that some of your youthful hearers are not 
of this class. They have not been willingly guided from in- 
fancy by the Spirit of God. They may be forming habits of 
sin. They are on their way from the Father's house to the 
"far country." Warn them, and win them. Try hopefully 
and confidently to bring them to the great Christian decision, 
the whole-hearted choice of Christ as their Saviour and Lord. 

Nor should the preaching be confined to distinctively evan- 
gelical themes. Preach on various doctrines and duties, very 
much as in your sermons to the general congregation : e.g., 
on faith, the fatherhood of God, the facts of the life of Jesus, 
prayer, thankfulness, the evil consequences of sin, doing good, 
courage, temperance. You may expect all such themes to be 
useful both for conversion and upbuilding. 

Do not abuse the child's emotive and volitional nature. 
This is often done by those whose zeal is tainted by insin- 
cerity or unregulated by knowledge. During a revival or in 
a Sunday-school prayer-meeting, for example, it is sometimes 
easy, through excessive demonstrations of sympathy and emo- 
tion, combined with a half-conscious exercise of authority, to 
overbear the will of almost any child. Then, of course, he 
will kneel for prayers or declare himself a penitent in any way 
you may wish. It is sad work. Spiritual darkness, dullness of 
heart, unbelief, are its appropriate fruits. The true Christian 



440 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

treatment of souls is different. Instruct, convince, persuade 
with earnest and sympathetic words ; but, in child and man, 
respect the sacredness of the will. Leave him free. Let him 
act for himself. To go just far enough in our pressure upon 
a young and flexible will is indeed a delicate and difficult art ; 
but it must be learned. 

Do not construct a false ideal of the religious experiences 
of a child. Above all, do not impose such an ideal upon him. 
To lead him at any time to believe he must feel as he need 
not will confuse his conscience and probably make him a 
hypocrite ; it will not help him to become a Christian. A 
child's piety may be as real as that of a saint of half a cen- 
tury ; but it will be — the piety of a child. The light of dawn, 
though as genuine as that of noonday, is happily not poured 
forth with the same volume and intensity. " When I was a 
child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child." 
The kingdom of heaven in the heart of any human being is 
measured by his capacity ; takes such forms of expression as 
are suited to his condition ; and even in the case of the most 
saintly and the most gifted minds is never more than very in- 
adequately expressed in words. 

Read Bushnell's " Christian Nurture," Trumbull's " Yale Lectures on 
the Sunday-school," any volume of Dr. Richard Newton's " Sermons to 
Children." 



LECTURE XXVI 

THE PREACHER AS AN EVANGELIST 

IT is too late in the history of Christianity to question the 
utility of religious revivals. Let their works praise them, 
— the churches and institutions of learning that have been 
founded, the neglected truths that have been set forth in new 
light, the millions of souls that have been converted, through 
their influence. The largest and probably the most aggressive 
religious denomination of our land is the great evangelical 
revival of the eighteenth century organized into permanent 
ecclesiastical forms. It was established and hitherto has been 
conducted preeminently as an evangelistic agency. 

Still, is there not some half-defined objection in many de- 
vout minds to revivals of religion, as if they were not an ele- 
ment of the truest Christian life and work? Why should not 
the church live in the fullness of spiritual power, we may be 
ready to ask, all the year round and all the time? Even so ; 
and yet we will look a little further into the subject. There 
must be a philosophy of revivals, as of everything else in the 
Christian life ; and if we can make it out, this will help us to 
see them in their true light, whether they be a genuine experi- 
ence in religion, or an ebullition of morbid and untrained 
emotion. 

I. What, then, are the Principles of Revivals? 

It will not do to say that these excitements, often so great 
and remarkable, are of God— divine manifestations— and that 
441 



442 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

this is all we need to know or can know about them. Agriculture 
is of God. All the farmer can do is to put separated portions 
of matter together: "nature [God] working within does the 
rest." Only He who made the grain of wheat can make it grow : 
it is a manifestation of infinite beneficent power. Neverthe- 
less we talk about the principles of agriculture ; for by this we 
mean those laws written by the finger of God on material 
things, in accordance with which man must work in order to 
get a harvest. In like manner, the laws written on human 
souls, with which we must cooperate in order to have a revival 
of religion, are what we wish to know in seeking the principles 
of revivals. " So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should 
cast seed upon the earth ; . . . and the seed should spring up 
and grow, he knoweth not how." 

i . 77 is in the nature of the soul that it should experience at 
times a greater fullness of life and joy. Nor is this due to human 
imperfections: we cannot conceive it otherwise even in the 
most perfect character. 

Indeed, have we not here one high expression of a larger 
law? All life ebbs and flows: though always persisting, its 
energies have their points of culmination and dispersion. 
There is seed-time and harvest. What an evangelist is the 
rising sun, — with his quickening light and heat, and his "words" 
declaring the glory of God " to the end of the world "! 

The same thing is true of the intellect and the heart. There 
are times when all the mind can do is to follow some other 
man's thought or plod in some familiar path ; and again there 
are supreme moments of inspiration and creative power. Do 
we not say even of the greatest genius that he sometimes falls 
below and sometimes surpasses himself? So there are times 
when the love of kindred and friends consciously possesses and 
constrains the soul as it does not ordinarily. So with grief: 
it spends its force, but at some other time will gather it up 
again. Who could pass his days in continuous tears — or 
laughter? 



THE PREACHER AS AN EVANGELIST 443 

We need not be surprised, then, to find that the spiritual move- 
ment of the soul is not upon one dead level of consciousness. 
There are occasions of deeper insight, of larger outlook, of 
more abundant joy — the House Beautiful and the Delectable 
Mountains— in the life of the most faithful and the most saintly 
(Acts iv. 31-33; 2 Cor. xii. 2-4). The daily walk of God's 
obedient children is close with Him; nevertheless they have 
seasons of unusual refreshing from His presence. Was it be- 
cause he was not always equally earnest and devout that Ray 
Palmer could not have composed such a hymn as " My faith 
looks up to Thee," every week of the year? If there ever 
lived a man who could write a hymn at any time, and in point 
of fact was writing them continually, such a man was Charles 
Wesley. Yet how many has he given us like "Jesus, Lover 
of my soul," and " Come, O Thou Traveler unknown "? 
Bishop Marvin tells this experience : " Soon after I united 
with the church I had an experience I am sure I can never 
forget. I was in the saddle, on the Lord's day, on my way to 
a social meeting in the country. The aspects of the autumnal 
scenery are as distinct in my memory as if it had been yester- 
day : the warm sun lay upon the mottled foliage, and there 
seemed the hush of a hallowed peace upon the face of nature. 
All at once the thought came to me, ' I am in the church and 
it is in my power now, by my unholy living, to bring a blot on 
the church, and to dishonor the Saviour.' For a time the re- 
flection seemed insupportable ; it was more than I could bear." 
Would this sense of responsibility have come upon him every 
day with the same awful tremblings of joy and pain, if only 
he had been a better man? John Flavel had one day in which 
" still, still the joy of the Lord overflowed him, and he seemed 
to be an inhabitant of the other world." He called it one of 
the days of heaven ; and said it had taught him more of what 
the heavenly life must be than all he had ever heard or read. 
Could he have lived his whole life and done his whole work in 
that third heaven of religious ecstacy? 



444 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Now let such feelings spread from soul to soul, and the 
church is in a state of revival. 

2. But is there any reason why they should thus spread and 
multiply? Yes; the power of personal presence, the contagion 
of sympathy, the contact of mind with mind. 

The Christian graces are increased in us not only through 
prayer, but also through brotherhood. Faith, hope, and love 
are thus developed. " Not forsaking the assembling of our- 
selves together, as the custom of some is." Why? Because 
we thus provoke one another to love and good works; be- 
cause every such meeting, through what each both receives 
and gives, is in each a renewal of the spiritual mind. " Com- 
fort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also 
ye do." 

Now hold a series of meetings. Meet on successive days. 
Let impressions be repeated. Devote much time to Chris- 
tian fellowship. Let the preaching be frequent, fervent, in- 
sistent. The natural result is a general quickening of the 
religious life. 

Nor is it any disparagement of revivals to say that the di- 
vine influence is communicated and diffused largely along social 
lines. Why should it not be? Especially why should not 
backsliding Christians and the unconverted be thus brought 
into contact with the power of the Gospel? The redeeming 
love of God becomes real to men, thrilling through the looks 
and lives of their fellows. They are interested, rebuked, at- 
tracted, stirred out of their torpor, by the spiritually alive souls 
about them. Yes ; by the Gospel and the Spirit of God in 
those souls. 

Moreover, we may assume that at almost any time there are 
persons in the congregation who are interested concerning their 
own salvation, and yet are hesitating and putting off the full 
committal of themselves to Christ. What do they need? It 
may be, the excitation that will come from a revived and re- 
joicing church. The rising tide of religious feeling and moral 






THE PREACHER AS AN EVANGELIST 445 

earnestness in the church will uplift the timid, procrastinating 
soul, and start it forth in the Christian life. 

3. But we shall also do well to remember that it is not for 
us to know the times and seasons which the Father has put in 
His own power. Could the baptism of fire at Pentecost have 
been given, even to a church praying and trusting " with one 
accord in one place," before Jesus was glorified? Could 
Luther have been the leader in such a revival as the Refor- 
mation had he been born five hundred years earlier? Is the 
fact that the Chinese Empire is not now ablaze with Pente- 
costal power due to a lack of faith and labor on the part of 
the Christian missionaries in that land? The same principle 
may apply to the particular congregation or pastoral charge. 

There are circumstances, epochs, conditions, which, for rea- 
sons partly or wholly beyond our control, are specially propi- 
tious for the revelation of the truth and power of God. With 
Him, indeed, the Father of lights, there is no variableness. 
His word is always equally true, — " Ask, and ye shall receive." 
But men are not always the same. Their theories and pur- 
suits, their beliefs and unbeliefs, the spirit and temper of a 
community or of a whole nation, — these conditions may vary 
significantly from time to time. Who can see just what is 
taking place, at any time, in the hundreds or thousands of 
souls around him? There may be great and numerous ob- 
stacles to the shining forth of God's glory in the moral world 
that we do not know and cannot remove. Or it may be that 
here and now in our neighborhood " the kingdom of heaven 
is at hand." Are we in the divine order, working together 
with God, diligent in season and out of season, expectant, be- 
lieving? We need have no other concern. 

Does it follow from these facts and principles that in 
the interim of revivals there must be a decline of personal re- 
ligion? On the contrary, the higher the spiritual tone of the 
church and the more abundant its habitual activity, the more 
genuine, salutary, and permanent in its effects will be the re- 



446 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

vival when it comes. In fact, is not a true revival like the 
springtime to a tree,— opening out the soul into a new spiri- 
tual year, making a permanent addition to its vitality, strength, 
and fruitfulness? In other words, is it not a process of 
growth? 

II. But we must also look at the practical side of our sub- 
ject,— the Promotion and Conduct of Revivals. 

i. Make careful plans and preparation. Choose a time for 
the meeting when the people's minds are least likely to be 
diverted or prepossessed by secular interests,— by politics, bus- 
iness, social life. 

Talk to your church-members about the proposed under- 
taking. Commend it to their prayers. Ask their opinions ; 
ask what each is willing to do ; get promises of cooperation. 
Make it a personal matter. Are there not some who have 
never led a soul to Christ? Show them that now is a favor- 
able opportunity. Interest parents for their children, Sunday- 
school teachers for their scholars, friends for their friends. 
All the while be sure that you yourself are in constant com- 
munion with the God of [grace and almighty power. Thus 
the sacred fire already burning in your soul will enkindle 
others. 

2. Purify your own heart from double-mindedness. What 
are your motives? Reputation, financial improvement, eccle- 
siastical promotion, and the love of Christ? Let this last 
motive become so powerful and dominant that the others will 
be as nothing. Otherwise there is danger of much spurious 
work (i Cor. iii. n-15), and personally you may come out of 
the meeting with spiritual loss and damage. You will be 
greatly disposed to "count," and to publish, and to put num- 
bers above quality. 

Deal as faithfully with your helpers as with yourself. Let 
there be deep searchings of heart. Gather all willing souls 
about you, and let minister and people reconsecrate themselves 
to God and His service. Not simply for the work before you. 



THE PREACHER AS AN EVANGELIST 447 

Not as a mere expedient for the success of the meeting. Such 
self-consecration, remember, is itself the highest success and 
the truest revival. 

3. The winning of souls is not limited to the public occasion. 
It is also personal and private. Take advantage of casual 
meetings with the unconverted to speak a word in season. But 
not this alone : seek them out and consider how they may best 
be approached. Use all possible tact and common sense, and 
always in a kindly spirit,— a spirit "of love and of a sound 
mind." This will be less exciting work and more difficult, per- 
haps, than the conduct of the meetings. Hence the temptation 
to a sort of officialism which prompts the plea, It is my busi- 
ness to take charge, to be the public leader. But men may 
often be won singly, face to face, by loving and earnest per- 
sonal work, when all other methods have proved insufficient 
(John ix. 35-38)- 

4. There will be much singing. While sympathizing with 
it heartily, guide it wisely. Do not assume that sincere and 
rejoicing worshipers will necessarily find their own best mode 
of utterance in song. They may often be greatly helped, and 
sometimes against their own will. Many Sunday-school and 
revival songs have won their way into use by the spirit and 
beauty of their tunes rather than by the appropriateness of 
their words. Choose the best. Let mere feeble and tasteless 
ditties fall out of use. Let the service of song sustain, not 
enfeeble and burlesque, the Christian sentiment which it seeks 
to express and communicate. This is a matter of truth and 
simplicity, not merely of taste. 

5. Revival preaching offers the type to which all preaching 
ought more or less completely to conform. Hence it is no 
new thing to us at this stage of our studies. 

It must aim at definite and immediate results. 

It must be evangelical. Search for the strongest possible 
motives to repentance. They are found in the Law and the 
Gospel of Christ. Preach these in all their simplicity, plainly 



448 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

and tenderly, without verbiage, without speculation, without 
irrelevant exposition or discussion. 

Often it is a nice point to decide how much preaching, in 
the stricter sense, to have. Too little may encourage super- 
ficiality ; too much may hold attention to the contemplation of 
truth, after the time has come for action. Besides, we shall 
find it expedient often to make Christian testimony prominent 
in the meetings. But let there be preaching, — texts taken and 
sermons delivered, short, clear, sympathetic, and strong. Do 
not be content with mere talks. 

Usually one preacher is better than two or more. A new 
voice and style of utterance, though they should be good in 
themselves, will awaken and gratify curiosity rather than spiri- 
tual desire. Besides, a stranger is not likely to be in sympathy 
with the state of feeling in the congregation. Dr. Finney 
would not allow a strange preacher to occupy the pulpit in a 
meeting of which he had charge. " I supposed," he says, 
" that Christ had put the work into my hands in such a sense 
that I was under obligation to adapt means to ends, and not 
to call upon others who knew little of the state of things to 
attempt to instruct the people. I did in these cases just as I 
would be done by. I would not allow myself to go in where 
another man was laboring to promote a revival, and suffer my- 
self to be put in his place, when I knew little or nothing about 
the state of the people." At least let the pastor still be the 
leader; and by exhortation and otherwise adapt the preach- 
ing of any helper he may have to the mind and feeling of the 
people. 

Professional evangelists, when sincere and devout, — not 
lovers of money or notoriety,— have their place. But it is 
better that you should not need to call for them. Are you 
not also an evangelist? Be true to your commission. The 
experience of the great revival pastor of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, Dr. J. O. Peck, is very instructive : " No one 
ever began the ministry more diffident, more easily embarrassed, 



THE PREACHER AS AN EVANGELIST 449 

more afraid to speak to persons, or more ignorant of the way 
to do it, than the writer. He often became so confused that 
neither the people nor he himself could make any sense out of 
what he was saying. Frequently he was tempted of Satan to 
feel that he had no call nor adaptation to the work. At last 
he determined by the help of God to be a soul-saving pastor. 
It cost him ten years of hard work before he began to under- 
stand some of the methods of success, and for the whole thirty 
years he has been learning diligently in this school. But in 
his poor blundering work this conviction has been solidified 
into purpose and faith, — that the pastor and local church are 
sufficient for producing a revival under the assured power of 
the Holy Ghost. We dare not believe less." 

6. Insist with all possible urgency upon the prompt and 
entire surrender of the soul to Christ ; and earnestly advise that 
the wish or determination to make this surrender be shown at 
once in some suitable act. I know of none so suitable as to 
kneel in prayer among the people of God. This is not simply 
an act of public committal to the Christian life : it is an actual 
and direct seeking of God and calling upon Him. But other 
opportunities may be given,— to ask for prayers, to remain 
after dismission, to attend an inquiry-meeting. Anything to 
tone up the will and bring the wavering soul to the point of 
decision. 

Such acts of committal are not peculiar to modern revivals. 
They are evidently in the spirit of Scripture precedents. The 
multitude on the day of Pentecost cried out at once, " What 
shall we do?" — and the preacher's reply was, "Repent ye, 
and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ 
unto the remission of your sins." Likewise did John, in his 
vast congregation by the river Jordan, urge his hearers not 
only to repent, but to be baptized then and there, as a sign of 
their repentance and readiness for the coming kingdom of 
God. John, also, had his "inquiry-meeting." The people 
asked him, "What shall we do? " The publicans came, and 



450 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the soldiers, with the same question. And in each case he had 
the appropriate answer ready (Luke iii. 10-13). 

But there is liability to over-emphasis. The impression may 
easily be made indirectly— it is not likely to be made other- 
wise — that such an act of committal is the thing to be done. 
Rather let the preacher direct his energies toward producing 
strong convictions of sin and heartfelt repentance. If, by the 
grace of God, this point is gained, there will be little difficulty 
about the rest. The truly convicted and repentant sinner will 
not need to be continually urged to do this and that. He 
will be ready to go anywhere, to do anything, to lay hold of 
any help that may offer. 

7. There will sometimes be irregularities to control. Loud- 
ness is a wretched substitute for earnestness. Noisy demon- 
strations in the ears of inquirers and penitents are not only 
unseemly, but confusing and stupefying. Have silent prayers, 
and hymns in a low tone of voice, now and then. Do not 
give such instructions as shall make people feel it to be either 
a means or a sign of spiritual life, in singing and prayer, to 
scream. If your scriptural conduct of the meeting should be 
adversely criticised, you can well afford to take it kindly, being 
in the right. Wesley's experience, given in a letter to Adam 
Clarke, is suggestive : " In the great revival in London my 
first difficulty was to bring in temper those who opposed the 
work, and my next to check and regulate the extravagancies 
of those that promoted it ; and this was far the greater part of 
the work, for many of them would bear no check at all. . . . 
Meantime, while you act exactly right, expect to be blamed 
on both sides. . . . Never think a man is an enemy to the 
work because he reproves irregularity." 

8. The sinful soul has been convinced of its sin, and is now 
an inquirer for the way of salvation, or a penitent, contrite and 
prayerful. What can we do for such a soul? We can en- 
compass it with our prayers, and commend it to that Holy 
Spirit who alone is able to guide the seeker of God aright. 
But the word of counsel must also be given. 






THE PREACHER AS AN EVANGELIST 451 

In your anxiety to have the penitent make confession of 
Christ, do not be so unwise and cruel as to comfort him with 
false teaching. Do not assure him that he has found a bless- 
ing which not only is he unconscious of, but which you have 
no valid reason to believe he possesses. It may be done, 
among other ways, by some such fallacious argument as this : 
" Do you love the Saviour? " " Yes." " Do you not believe 
He loves you?" "Yes." "Well, religion is love; that's re- 
ligion, that's conversion." As if nine tenths of those who 
come to find instruction in our meetings would not feel it a 
duty to answer such questions in the affirmative. What sort 
of dealing with a penitent soul is it to put him in a position 
where he feels constrained to make a confession for which he 
is unprepared? Help him to find the peace of conscious 
acceptance with God, always and by all means ; but do not 
tell him he has it, nor put your own words in his mouth. 

We are to be ministers of the new covenant, not of the 
letter, but of the spirit. An evangelist says : " Accept the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. He has done the 
work of redemption. Will you accept Him as your Saviour? " 
" I will," is the answer from this or that hearer. " Then, His 
word for it, you are saved." But what deeply experienced 
Christian teacher does not know the danger of substituting 
words for realities, the danger of salvation by the letter? A 
man must have a sense of his sin and need, and a turning of 
the heart from sin to Christ, before ever he can know what 
it means to say, " I accept the Saviour." The word of sal- 
vation is not " He who says, ' I believe,' " but " He who be- 
lieves"— with personal surrender and self-crucifixion— "shall 
be saved." 

In the Roman Catholic Church the penitent in the confes- 
sional believes that he is forgiven, because the priest has told 
him so. In all our congregations are those who want the 
minister to tell them that they are saved. Do not act the 
priest toward this infirmity of human nature. Instruct, pray, 
encourage with the precious evangel of Christ; be a teacher 



452 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

and a helper; but pronounce no word of absolution. Lead 
the penitent to God, that he may not only be forgiven, but 
may have the assurance of forgiveness imparted by the still, 
small voice of God's Spirit in the heart. 

On the other hand, you may have to correct an exaggerated 
idea in the inquirer's mind of the evidences of conversion. If 
he be unwilling to believe himself an accepted child of God 
without some such ecstatic joy as certain other persons have 
seemed to experience, he needs to be taught what is the true 
witness of the Spirit in the believing heart. Has he been 
enabled to trust? is the sense of condemnation gone? has he 
the filial feeling toward God? has he some sense of nearness 
to God through Jesus Christ? is the word that seems to befit 
his lips in prayer, all unworthy as he is, " Our Father who art 
in heaven "? Then has God sent forth the Spirit of His Son 
into that penitent heart, crying, " Father." Let him make 
confession of Christ, and go forth to do the will of his 
heavenly Father. 

The main difficulty with most inquirers is an unwillingness 
to give up all sin. They would retain something,— some spirit 
of unforgivingness, of vanity, of covetousness. But all must 
go. There can be no compromise. The very right eye, if it 
offend, must be plucked out. Do not speak of entire conse- 
cration as peculiar to some advanced stage of Christian life : 
it is also at the beginning thereof. Persuade the inquirer, by 
the grace of God, to make this consecration of himself at the 
Cross of Jesus — he is then and there accepted. It must be 
so ; and he may expect the answering voice of the Divine 
Spirit within assuring him of sonship to God. 

But suppose the answer of peace should not come to the 
soul even after this entire self-surrender seems to have been 
made. It will often be the case. And the word of wisdom 
to such a soul is : Quit seeking assurance, and seek to do the 
will of God ; obey ; be self-forgetful ; go right on in the path 
of love and duty ; be wholly given up to the work of the Lord ; 



THE PREACHER AS AN EVANGELIST 453 

say to yourself, " Whether I be a Christian or not, I am going 
to live in Jesus's name, to make other people better and hap- 
pier." Ere long this way of obedience will prove to be the 
way of peace. 

9. Let nothing discourage you. Be cheerful, hopeful, 
sweet-spirited throughout. Show no irritation of feeling when 
disappointed in the result of your efforts. Be all the more 
earnest and indomitable. A brave, confident leader,— what 
fullness of life is in him for all his followers ! Dr. R. W. Dale, 
of Birmingham, in his account of the effect of Moody and 
Sankey's work in that city upon certain persons who had long 
been members of Christian churches, says : " I hardly know 
how to describe the change that has come upon them. It is 
like the change which comes upon a landscape when clouds 
which have been hanging over it for hours vanish, and the 
sunlight seems to fill both heaven and earth. There is a joy- 
ousness and an elasticity of spirit, and a hopefulness, which 
have completely transformed them; and the transformation 
shows itself in the unostentatious eagerness with which they 
are taking up Christian work." It was not an inexplicable 
state of mind. The " sunlight " of a strong and joyous pres- 
ence had fallen upon them, — a contagion from the looks, words, 
acts, of those strong-hearted servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

And the secret of it all— the deepest and most significant 
condition of success in this great work of the Lord — is faith. 
Believe in men. Notwithstanding their flippancy, their little- 
ness, their animalism, their vices, sins, and crimes, believe in 
the possibilities of their nature. See the germs of good as 
well as of evil in them,— as a parent does in his children, as a 
righteous and loving friend does in his friend. Believe that 
God has made them for an immortal destiny; that He can 
love them and call them His children ; that He has redeemed 
them by the Cross ; that He has show<n them in His Son Jesus 
Christ what glory of character and of life it is possible for 
them to reach. 



454 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Have faith in God. The two faiths are one ; they stand 
or fall together. To believe in men is to believe in God, their 
Creator and Saviour. Be possessed of the thought, the reali- 
zation, of His presence and purpose and power. Then cheer- 
fully dare to do the impossible. Why should not the work of 
the Lord go on ? Forget self — O, forget yourself. Refuse to 
cherish any affectation or vain ambition. Open your heart to 
receive the Spirit of God. He will enter and abide with you ; 
He will speak through your words ; He will save the people. 
" Rabbi," said the disciples, " behold, the fig-tree which Thou 
cursedst is withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto 
them, Have faith in God," — and taught them to expect not 
only the power to do seemingly impossible works, but the 
blessedness of receiving whatsoever they should ask. 

Read " The Revival and the Pastor," by Dr. J. O. Peck. 



LECTURE XXVII 

PREPARATION OF THE SERMON WITH REFERENCE 
TO ITS DELIVERY 

IN preparing an article for publication, when the writer lays 
aside the pen his work is done : the types will do the rest. 
But preparing a sermon is preparing to preach : author and 
publisher are one. And this fact must have large significance 
with respect to the kind and the amount of preparation re- 
quired. The writer has simply to consider, " What effect will 
this piece have upon people as they read it? " The preacher 
asks, " How may I get ready to stand before the people and 
speak to them effectively? " 

Let me assume two things : first, that you are unprejudiced 
as to which method is best ; secondly, that you are willing to 
adopt the best method, no matter how much labor and self- 
mortification it may seem to involve. The assurance that 
these two assumptions are valid would greatly encourage me, 
at the start. 

It is not true, though some believe it, that this is a matter 
whose importance in homiletics has been exaggerated, — that, 
inasmuch as an earnest man will make his preaching effective 
on any method, he need be little concerned as to the method 
he may choose or happen to follow. Let it be our endeavor 
to find, not a way, but the way, in all that relates to the in- 
comparable work of ministering the truth of Christ. 
455 



456 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

What, then, are the various methods of preparation with 
reference to delivery ? 

i . General or habitual preparation only. The preacher does 
not even select his theme, it may be, before meeting the con- 
gregation. The whole sermon— materials, plan, language— is 
given impromptu ; invention and delivery are practically sim- 
ultaneous. 

Now this would seem to be the ideal mode. It may cer- 
tainly be said that the better furnished the preacher has be- 
come, intellectually and morally, the less need there will be for 
specific preparation. In an ever-enlarging sense of the word, 
he will be always ready. Dr. Archibald Alexander showed 
his faith in the possibilities of impromptu speech, in his own 
case, by declaring more than once that "if he were to stake 
his life on a single effort, he would, if familiar with the general 
subject, abandon himself entirely to the impulse of the mo- 
ment." Another significant example may be found in the 
autobiography of President Finney, who believed his unpre- 
meditated sermons to be given him by direct inspiration of the 
Ho'y Spirit : " When I first began to preach, and for some 
twelve years of my earliest ministry, I wrote not a word ; and 
was most commonly obliged to preach without any preparation 
whatever, except what I got in prayer. Oftentimes I went in- 
to the pulpit without knowing upon what text I should speak, 
or a word I should say. I depended on the occasion and the 
Holy Spirit to suggest the text, and to open up the whole sub- 
ject to my mind ; and certainly in no part of my ministry have 
I preached with greater success and power. If I did not preach 
from inspiration, I don't know how I did preach. It was a 
common experience with me, and has been during all my 
ministerial life, that the subject would open up to my mind in 
a manner that was surprising to myself. It seemed that I 
could see with intuitive clearness just what I ought to say, 
and whole platoons of thoughts, words, and illustrations came 
to me as fast as I could deliver them. When I first began 



PREPARATION WITH REFERENCE TO DELIVERY 45? 

to make 'skeletons,' I made them after and not before I 
preached." 

All this I can well believe ; and I think none of us should 
be satisfied without the realization of some such power. I can 
accept Dr. Phelps's definition of a sermon — "an oral address 
to the popular mind, upon religious truth contained in the 
Scriptures, and elaborately treated with a view to persuasion " 
— and still believe in unpremeditated preaching, both as an 
occasional fact and a permanent ideal. 

But let us remember that the Spirit of God gives no inspi- 
ration in disregard of mental conditions and laws, or as a sub- 
stitute for human exertion. To be always ready to preach 
means to be single-minded, — "to be able to say, 'This one 
thing I do,' rather than, ' These forty things I dabble in.' " 
The preacher who is always gathering materials, consciously 
and unconsciously, who has acquired some facility in planning 
a discourse, and who is always in the spirit of preaching, need 
not be surprised to find the sermon, both plan and develop- 
ment, opening out before him in the pulpit without previous 
study. 

As to that impromptu preaching which consists of a jumble 
of superficial expository remarks, with like exhortations ap- 
pended, destitute of substance, sequence, and force ; or a 
procession of words and phrases, with only now and then a 
corresponding idea; or divers parts of old sermons patched 
together and mechanically sewed to the text, — such extempo- 
rizing is so far from being impressive that it excites pity and 
often deserves indignation. 

It is also to be borne in mind that, while the demand for 
habitual and the demand for specific preparation are indeed 
related under a law of inverse proportion, the latter demand 
will seldom fall away to nothing. The really new sermon will 
almost always have its proper and distinct origin in a course 
of premeditation. 

2. To preach from a general outline of the subject, prepared 



458 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

beforehand. A common defect under this method is that the 
sermon begins, continues, and ends a skeleton ; or at best a 
starveling. As well equipped an extemporaneous preacher as 
Dr. James W. Alexander confesses that, in his attempts to 
preach from mere heads of discourse, he has always been dis- 
appointed by not having as much to say under each head as 
he had expected. Not infrequently the procedure is somewhat 
as follows : The preacher announces his first division, which he 
hoped would develop in the pulpit ; but probably he is disap- 
pointed ; the division does not develop. So he is constrained 
to repeat it in slightly varied phraseology ; and after a few 
remarks which, he is vaguely aware, are neither pertinent nor 
forcible, he must pass on to the next prepared thought. When 
all is done, there has been a good deal of repetition, a good 
deal of irrelevant matter, a good deal of 

" commonplace 
And vacant chaff well meant for grain," 

but not a single well-elaborated point. Still, something has 
been accomplished ; for in the pulpit the preacher did make an 
effort to develop his outline. And so will he do again, when 
opportunity occurs to repeat the sermon. More and more is 
thus gradually gained ; till, after numerous repetition, this 
preacher may have nearly as good a sermon as he is capable 
of producing. 

But observe, he is not now preaching from a mere general 
outline. He began with that, but has been filling it out from 
time to time in the pulpit. Not alone, not on his knees before 
God, not while going about the duties of the day ; but with 
open mouth before his congregations. In the study he has 
done other things, or nothing. The pulpit is his study ; and 
the people, young and old, sluggish and quick-witted, are ex- 
pected to come together, not only to hear a discourse when 
there is one to hear, but also, when there is one in process of 
construction, to sit patiently and witness the making of it. 



PREPARATION WITH REFERENCE TO DELIVERY 459 

I have intimated that the sermon prepared on this method, 
though sadly meager at first, may finally become " good to the 
use of edifying." Let me now say, the probabilities are that 
it will not. Because the verbosities in which the preacher is 
almost sure to indulge, in his attempts to develop his plan in 
the act of delivery, will probably remain as part of the sermon, 
and be substantially repeated on every subsequent occasion. 

May I illustrate this kind of sermon-making in the pulpit ? 
The preacher, let us suppose, intends to say : " The Christian 
is a lover of man. Taught of Christ, he discerns something 
dear and sacred in humanity in whatever condition it appears." 
But being on the alert, as each word falls from his lips, for 
something further to say, he amplifies as follows : " The Chris- 
tian, the man who has repented of his sins and believed on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and who is striving to follow Him and to 
be like Him, — to follow Him through evil as well as good re- 
port, — is a lover of man, a lover of mankind, a friend to all. 
Taught of Christ, who spake as never man spake, he discerns 
something dear and sacred in humanity in whatever condition 
it appears, in all men, something good in all ; or if not actually 
good, something at least that promises good, some germ of 
goodness ; he has an eye to see it, if he be a Christian, — he is 
able to see something sacred in all men, the high and the low, 
the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate," etc. 
So this extemporaneous preacher plods along, in zigzag course, 
crossing and recrossing the straight path on to the end. What 
is fondly called the " development " of the thought is, in fact, 
its <f#velopment in useless wrappings of words. 

Now if in any preacher's case nothing more than a proper 
arrangement of the chief points of discourse be necessary be- 
forehand, for him the question is settled. Similarly if he should 
have no need to prepare even an outline, it would be a waste 
of time to do so. But let there be no taking counsel of the 
flesh ; let him be sure that he is wise, observant, and honest in 
reaching his decision. 



460 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

In the act of preaching the energies of the soul must be free 
to feel and to deliver the truth. The opportunity to go in 
search of it is over. Any division of mental energy between 
the effort to think up something to say, on the one hand, and 
the realization and delivery of it, on the other, detracts by so 
much from the power of one's utterance. There must be no 
labor of thought. Habere, non haberi. All except spontane- 
ous or virtually spontaneous thinking is out of place before an 
audience. 

Unquestionably very many sermons are preached every 
Sunday which, if stenographically reported, would astonish the 
preacher by their meagerness, their weak repetitions, and their 
similarity to sermons recently delivered to the same congrega- 
tion. And these defects would have been avoided, in most 
cases, by a more thorough and conscientious preparation. 

3. To write and read. This method seems to be entirely 
modern, and almost entirely confined to English-speaking 
preachers. Its general adoption in any church is hardly less 
than a calamity. A great deal, it is true, depends on how the 
discourse is read. Just as one man will render a hymn or a 
Scripture lesson in such a manner as to interpret and vivify 
every word ; while another, or perhaps the same man at an- 
other time, will only confuse or tire his hearers ; so, in the case 
of sermons, there is reading and reading. I can recall two 
preachers who read their sermons so as to make the impression, 
at least on my own mind, that it could only spoil their delivery 
to preach in any other way. 

To deliver a sermon effectively on this method requires not 
only the power to throw one's whole thought and heart into 
one's manuscript, but also an overflowing mental vivacity. 
True, the extemporaneous speaker must also be vivacious ; but 
the difference is that free speech is adapted to bring out and 
utilize all one's latent energy, while the manuscript is repressive. 
It has been said that you may " use the paper to kindle the 
fire " ; but I, for one, have seldom been able to kindle such 



PREPARATION WITH REFERENCE TO DELIVERY -101 

fire with such fuel — and long ago abandoned the attempt. 
The orator must be all alive : consider whether, like that prince 
of sermon-readers, Thomas Chalmers, you have the enthusiasm, 
the resilience, the quick and energetic movement that are 
more than enough for extemporaneous speech. 

You will also probably find, as a matter of fact, that those 
preachers who, speaking from a full manuscript, hold an au- 
dience in rapt attention are not so much readers as reciters of 
sermons. Like professional readers, they repeat memoriter, — 
with frequent glances, partly to assist the memory, and partly 
from habit, at the composition before them. "Who could 
find fault," asks Dr. Hoppin, " with the preaching of such a 
man as Horace Bushnell in his prime, when the manuscript 
before him seemed to vanish, and he soared above it, and 
above all art, by the force of his strong thinking and the in- 
spiration of a divine and expanding theme?" Few indeed 
would find fault with such preaching from manuscript ; but is 
it reading? Is not the sermon written on the memory as well 
as on the paper, and read off chiefly from that? 

Concerning the late Canon Liddon's preaching we are told : 
" Liddon's method of delivery was the manuscript method, and 
was universally employed ; but he had so mastered his subject 
and was so familiar with his manuscript that it was no more in 
his way than the banks of a stream hinder the liberty of the 
swiftly flowing current. It often seemed that he dispensed 
with his manuscript while it actually lay before him. The 
oratorical expression from manuscript was an admirable ex- 
ample of the vital difference between reading a paper and 
delivery from manuscript." But here again we have, in reality, 
grand and impressive recitation. 

Nor can we by any means assume that the people will at 
least have a well-prepared sermon if it be written in full. It 
may be better than some extemporized addresses; but that 
proves nothing. Indifferent thinking expressed in feeble writ- 
ing is extremely common. 



462 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

To read religious discourses to the people was not the orig- 
inal custom ; it is not the approved custom of the present day ; 
we may safely predict that it will not be prevalent in the future. 
There is an artificiality about it that cannot be reasoned away. 
It repels the popular mind. It fails to give fair play to the 
powerful personal element in preaching. It marks the furthest 
possible remove from the natural and eloquent method of 
speech. " What do our clergy lose," asks Julius C. Hare, 
" by reading their sermons? They lose preaching, the preach- 
ing of the voice in many cases, the preaching of the eye 
almost always." The sermon should not be in front of the 
preacher, to be picked up by him and delivered over to the 
congregation : it should be both of him and in him. 

4. To write in full and preach memoriter. This is not nearly 
so slavish a practice as many seem to suppose. To memorize 
a discourse of our own, which we have first thought out logi- 
cally from beginning to end, and then have written with equal 
care, is much less difficult than to memorize the writings of 
another. Besides, the preacher who composes with the inten- 
tion of recalling and delivering his words will endeavor to 
write in a clear, simple, straightforward style. To relieve the 
memory of unnecessary burdens, he will avoid long and in- 
volved sentences, and will choose the most natural and lucent 
forms of expression. 

Let us, then, not waste sympathy on the minister who has 
adopted the memoriter method. Supposing him to have a 
faithful and well-trained verbal memory, he is under no com- 
pulsion to work too hard. Dr. Hoppin's opinion, that " few 
men can commit a sermon in less than two days so as to be 
perfectly free," must be the result of a very imperfect induc- 
tion. Many men would have little use for more than two 
hours. " I never begin to commit," says Norman Macleod, 
in the journal of his early ministry, "till Saturday night— four 
readings do it." To some men, indeed, the memoriter mode 
of preparation would be not simply difficult, but impossible. 



PREPARATION WITH REFERENCE TO DELIVERY 463 

Of Adam Clarke it is stated that " after delivering five thou- 
sand sermons he could not recall an instance in which he 
knew beforehand a single sentence that he had to utter ; for 
his memory could not retain words." Dr. R. S. Storrs can 
hardly trust himself to quote a sentence. Minds like those of 
Alexander, Clarke, and Storrs, of quick creative power in 
language, are not likely, for obvious reasons, to have a tena- 
cious and ready memory for words. But, so far as public 
speaking is concerned, neither are they much in need of it. 

It is certain that unless the sermon be perfectly memorized, 
so that in the act of preaching it can be recalled with the 
slightest consciousness of effort, its delivery will be feeble. 
Because the whole energy of the soul being required for the 
delivery of the sermon, there will never be any to spare for 
the process of recollection. Better read nimbly from a fair 
manuscript than heavily and painfully decipher for your con- 
gregation "a written trouble of the brain." Though, when 
well done, memoriter preaching is greatly preferable to reading. 

But the instincts of both people and preacher are hostile to 
the recitation of sermons. " He is repeating, word for word, 
what he wrote last week or last year in his study " : such a 
thought in the minds of the congregation tends to depreciation 
of the preaching. A similar thought in your own mind is at 
least lacking in inspiration. " Even where there is the most 
laborious preparation," says Professor R. C. Jebb, in his 
" Attic Orators," " even where the fact of such preparation is 
notorious, it is generally felt to be essential to impressiveness 
that the fact of verbal premeditation should be kept out of 
sight, and on the part of the hearers it is considered more 
courteous to ignore it." Such instincts are in the line of truth, 
intellectual and moral, and should not be despised. 

A much stronger objection may be drawn from the cease- 
less variations of our intellectual and emotional states. What 
you write, if genuine, is the expression of your present feeling. 
Have you any assurance that it will express the feeling of next 



464 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Sunday or even of the next hour? About as much as that the 
sky above your head will be the same. Commit yourself, 
then, to a fixed form of verbal expression, and the risk of 
finding it unsuitable at the time of speaking must be incurred. 

Nor can either of the two ordinary ways of avoiding, or at 
least of minifying, this difficulty be approved. 

If, on the one hand, the preacher should say, " I will culti- 
vate the art of throwing myself into my piece and catching its 
tone, whatever that may be," it is the actor's art rather than 
the preacher's that he has chosen. The actor feels ; but it is 
through identifying himself in imagination with the character 
he personates, — in the case of the preacher-actor the persona- 
tion being that of some past self of his own. But the orator 
is supposed to express, not his conception of the subject with 
the feelings which it awakened at some past time, — whether a 
year or an hour ago,— but his present thought and feeling in their 
appropriate modes of communication. The finest possible 
acting would be a paltry substitute for genuine preaching. 
Moreover, the preacher's acting is likely to be poor. How 
often do we hear pathetic allusions or appeals, and bold figures 
of speech, in the pulpit, that waken no emotion but weariness 
or disgust! Are these, then, mock pathos and sublimity? 
Probably not — in the manuscript. They were written there 
because at that time they were felt. But now the preacher's 
mood is changed, while his language, having already crystal- 
lized, remains the same. 

If, on the other hand, in order to avoid this painful disso- 
nance between what he feels and what he says, the preacher 
should carefully abstain from the use of all highly imaginative 
and emotional language, he is deliberately surrendering im- 
portant elements of power. How can he, with a good con- 
science, thus impoverish his pulpit? 

5. To think out the language of the sermon without writing, 
and preach memoriter. We are told in the introduction of the 
" Sermons " of Bishop Pierce that he " could think a sermon 



PREPARATION WITH REFERENCE TO DELIVERY 465 

through, exegesis, argument, enlargement, illustrations, and the 
very words, and deliver it as accurately as if he had written it 
and memorized it. Knowing this peculiar gift of his tenacious 
memory for words as well as thoughts," continues the writer, 
" I once ventured to say to him that his condemnation of 
those who could not do like him, and must needs write on 
paper to memorize, was hardly fair." Robert Hall had this 
power in an eminent degree, and sometimes availed himself of 
it ; so had the eloquent Bishop John Johns, of Virginia, and 
others who might be mentioned. But the method is rarely 
practised. To most men it would be well-nigh unattainable ; 
and even when employed, it would seem to possess but little 
advantage over the ordinary memoriter method. 

6. To prepare a full outline, with more or less development, 
and preach extempore. Here we come to what may fairly be 
called the chosen method of them all. It makes provision for 
the various elements of powerful speech — substance, language, 
order, freedom— in such proportions as seem best adapted to 
the generality of preachers. 

Now let us see. It is essential, first of all, that the plan be 
elaborated thoroughly, and according to some logical sequence 
of thought. This gives the extemporaneous sermon a decided 
advantage over the discourse that is written to be read. The 
latter is not usually so well connected in its various parts. It 
is apt to become excursive and essay-like. " I take my text," 
said the most brilliant sermon-reader I have ever known, " and 
go wherever my thoughts carry me." " How do you know 
when you are done? " asked a friend. "I lay out so much 
paper," was the answer, "and when that is used up, quit." 
The impromptu speaker commonly proceeds in a somewhat 
similar manner,— instead of "so much paper," laying out so 
much time. But the extemporizer observes order, unity, con- 
tinuous progress toward a definite end. 

Observe, it is a part of this method that there shall be some 
development of the plan beforehand. The preacher must 



466 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

look at his ideas on all sides, turning them over and over in 
his mind,— working out his exegesis, finding his proofs, choosing 
his illustrations. 

And this will require the use of language. Accordingly he 
is gathering up words, getting a vocabulary, familiarizing his 
mind with fit expressions of thought on the subject of discourse. 
These will come and go. He may neither know nor care 
whether he shall have use for any of them in the pulpit. In 
fact, however, he will spontaneously employ them to a large 
extent; for the simple reason that they constitute a track 
which his mind has recently pursued. 

Certain parts of the sermon, especially the proposition and 
the divisions, whose size is inversely proportional to their im- 
portance, should be fixed in the mind with verbal precision. 
John Bright almost always prepared for exact reproduction 
the concluding sentences of a speech ; and many able ex- 
temporaneous speakers have a similar habit. Some prefer to 
know beforehand at least what their very last sentence is to 
be. And there may be still other passages of the sermon that 
it would be well to prepare with verbal accuracy. A fine 
doctrinal distinction may need to be drawn, or an evil practice 
about which the congregation is peculiarly sensitive may have 
to be rebuked, or a sin which requires delicate treatment be- 
fore a mixed audience may have to be dealt with. On such 
subjects the preacher must be frank and plain, while at the 
same time unusual care is required to avoid misstatements or 
needlessly offensive remarks. So he may feel unwilling, in 
these and similar instances, to commit himself to the use of 
such language as may come at call in the act of delivery. 

Moreover, the pen may be used as a clarifier of ideas. In 
other words, not only will the plan of the sermon be jotted 
down, subordinate thoughts briefly indicated, and certain parts 
written out in full for memorizing; but here and there, all 
through the course of preparation, a thought may be fully 
written in order to make it clear and distinct to one's own 



PREPARATION WITH REFERENCE TO DELIVERY 467 

mind. Dr. D. H. Greer, in his Yale Lectures on Preaching 
(" The Preacher and his Place "), has given an excellent ex- 
ample in his own case : " I think with a pencil in my hand ; 
and many of the thoughts as they come to me I try to express 
on paper, especially if, when they come to me, they are not 
very clear. . . . My purpose in writing, as far as I do write, 
is simply to make sure that I apprehend with distinctness the 
thought that is in my mind. I want to make sure that I have 
it, and not that I merely seem to have it ; and the only way 
sometimes in which I can make sure that I have it is to try to 
write it. And so I go through with my subject, writing a little 
every now and then, sometimes more, sometimes less, as the 
subject seems to require, not for the sake of the writing, or 
because I expect to use it in preaching, for I do not, but for 
the sake of the thinking." 

How long will it take? how many times shall the plan be 
reviewed and retouched? how full must the preparatory de- 
velopment be? Of course no specific answer can be given to 
such inquiries. Only this : The preparation should have be- 
come so familiar as to present itself freely at command in the 
pulpit ; the preacher must be thinking forward to his object, 
not backward to his notes. 

You will find, too, that almost or quite without exception 
the great extemporaneous preachers are also writers. " Very 
strongly do I warn all of you against reading your sermons," 
says Spurgeon to his "Students," "but I recommend as a 
most healthful exercise, and as a great aid toward obtaining 
extempore power, the frequent writing of them. Those of us 
who write a great deal in other forms, for the press, etc., may 
not so much require that exercise ; but if you do not use the 
pen in other ways, you will be wise to write at least some of 
your sermons, and revise them with great care. Leave them 
at home afterward, but still write them out, that you may be 
preserved from a slipshod style." When Spurgeon was asked 
by Dr. Cuyler whether he ever wrote sermons, he answered 



468 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

(hyperbolically), " I had rather be hung." Nevertheless the 
great extemporizer not only wrote freely for the press, but 
revised his sermons after the stenographer for publication, and 
in his earliest ministry even wrote most of them before de- 
livery. Indeed, who can expect to be accurate in public 
speech without learning accuracy through the use of the pen? 
To objectify your thought, putting it out before the mind "in 
black and white," is to bring it forth from the region of the 
indefinite, the mental nebula, in which it generally arises, and 
to show what direction it is taking and with what weaknesses 
it suffers. Certainly there is a painfully large number of 
preachers who would preach better i( they wrote more. 

7. To write the sermon in full and preach extetnpore. This 
does not differ essentially from the mode of preparation just 
described. In other words, it is only the ordinary extempo- 
raneous method expanded into its completest form ; not some- 
thing else, and not an excrescence, but a genuine development. 
Doubtless this extremely thorough preparation is not needed 
by all preachers ; but a large number, I am convinced, might 
adopt it with advantage. Especially would it prove suitable 
for a time to many who believe themselves to have no ex- 
temporaneous gift, and who consequently make a habit of 
reading or reciting their sermons. 

An easy experiment will show the availability of this method. 
Select in a book or a newspaper any piece that is at all inter- 
esting. Read it carefully, paying special attention to the order 
of thought. Then reproduce it in such language as occurs to 
you. Tell it to a friend, if you are so fortunate as to have 
one willing to be thus practised on. If not, speak it mentally 
or in an undertone to yourself. And now, instead of making 
the experiment on some one else's composition, experiment on 
something of your own, giving attention chiefly, as before, to 
the order of thought. Be careful and exact in your style of 
composition, but let the reproduction be spirited and free. If 
concise and strong, so much the better ; but do not be sensi- 
tive to its defects. 



PREPARATION WITH REFERENCE TO DELIVERY 469 

I know a preacher who used to read Plutarch's "Lives" 
and then relate the story to his children, — for his own benefit 
as well as theirs. The greatest of Roman orators did not re- 
gard it beneath his dignity to employ a similar expedient: 
" When a youth, having selected some nervous piece of poetry, 
or read over such a portion of a speech as I could retain in 
my memory, I used to declaim upon what I had been read- 
ing, in other words chosen with all the judgment I pos- 
sessed " (" De Oratore," Book I., ch. xxxiv.). These are good 
examples to follow; particularly when simple talking, either 
mental or articulate, is substituted for young Cicero's declama- 
tion. 

But the preacher's path is never entirely free from difficulties 
and dangers. Here one danger is that he may depend partly 
on his recollection of the written words and partly on extem- 
porization of language, and thus, with divided attention, " fall 
between two stools." Another danger is that, his verbal 
memory being too good, he may lapse into the habit of mere 
recitation. These dangers are real, but in most instances not 
to be greatly feared. Personally, after having followed this 
method more than any other, I have not found them formi- 
dable. If the preacher will pay much closer attention to the 
thoughts in their order than to the mere choice of words ; will 
learn to throw sentences into various forms or substitute them 
with others (for the purpose of accustoming himself to the use 
of alternative expressions) ; will think of other things which he 
may or may not say, in addition to what he is writing; will, 
in the pulpit, when he catches himself reciting in a mechanical 
way, quit reciting, — he is not likely to become badly entangled 
in either of these snares. 

Let me illustrate one of the processes just mentioned by an 
example. Suppose the first sentence of your sermon to be: 
" This parable was not delivered directly to either the disciples 
or the multitude, but to one man only, a certain lawyer, or 
scribe." Now the memoriter preacher would endeavor to fix 
this very language in his mind, so as to make it recur to him 



470 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

in the pulpit just as it was written. Not so the preacher of 
whom I am now speaking. He would rather avoid this. So 
he says to himself : " This is only one way of expressing the 
thought ; there are other ways ; and the thought itself may be 
modified in this or that manner, or be omitted entirely. I 
may say in preaching, ' Most of our Lord's parables were 
spoken to a company of persons, but here we have an ex- 
ception,' or, ' This parable was addressed to one man, a scribe 
who stood up and tempted Jesus,' or, ' The Divine Teacher 
spoke this parable to one of His tempters,' — and so on. Or 
I may leave out this sentence altogether— no matter, I am free 
to say what seems best at the time." 

He is free, both in mind and tongue, and at the same time 
well furnished. For he will find that after having analyzed 
his text, evolved the theme, noted the chief points, put in 
subordinate thoughts and illustrations, written out the whole 
discourse in plain and appropriate language, gone over it 
mentally again and again, all the while allowing himself a 
more varied range of thought and language than the mere 
manuscript represents, — he may not know precisely what he 
has written, but he will know his subject. That will occupy 
and interest his mind ; moreover, he will feel somewhat rich 
and capable in words; and, so far as intellectual preparation 
is concerned, he will be ready, not to recite, but in a truer 
sense to preach. 

After a time he may find a less amount of verbal prepara- 
tion sufficient. 



LECTURE XXVIII 

PERSONAL PREPARATION 

THE sermon is not yet made. No matter though you now 
stand in the pulpit ; no matter what truths you may have 
got hold of ; no matter what work you may have done,— there 
is as yet no real sermon. Whatever it may be that lies before 
you in the form of written words, the sermon does not lie there. 
All that you have thus far accomplished is to prepare to preach : 
the preaching is the completed sermon. And it will no longer 
exist when the last word shall have died on the listener's ear, 
except in the fragmentary form of a manuscript or a series of 
reproducible ideas in your own or some hearer's mind. The 
man who has sent the preacher a note glowing with sincerest 
thanks and requesting a copy of " the sermon, which has done 
him so much good that he must have it with him always," 
reads the pages which the busy preacher has written out for 
him, — reads them once with a feeling of disappointment, and 
lays them aside to be read no more. As well hope to perpet- 
uate the song that enchanted you, by having its words written 
and placed in your hands, even with the appropriate musical 
notation. It is only "the shattered stalks and ruined chrys- 
alis " of sermon or song that have been left behind ; the 
psyche has fled, or lives only in its effects upon the soul that is 
in you. 

It is the human element in preaching that constitutes the pe- 
culiar power of delivery. It is personal presence. In the pulpit 
471 



472 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

there may or may not be some sort of manuscript ; but there 
must be some sort of man. What manner of man, through the 
grace of God, in the experiences, choices, and habits of life, 
have you become? who preaches when you preach ? 

All through life have we been getting ready or else spoiling 
ourselves for this work. Have you spoken or acted the truth 
under temptation to lie? In that was something toward the 
making of an eloquent speaker. For sincerity went into the 
tones of your voice and the look of your eye : and sincerity is 
power. Note the significance of the following criticism by 
that keen yet kindly observer of public men, William H. 
Milburn : " The most accomplished speaker of the body was 
Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, whose dialectic subtlety in 
reasoning was saved from obscurity by a rare power of clear 
statement, happy illustration, and crystalline style, while an 
insinuating, courtier-like manner, and a voice musical as was 
Apollo's lute, would have made him an orator of surpassing 
power, if you could have been satisfied of his sincerity." 
It was true, in like manner, of Disraeli that, with all his bril- 
liant oratorical gifts, he failed to convince his audience, be- 
cause of not making the impression that he himself believed 
what he said. " No one in the House of Commons could ever 
tell whether Disraeli had sincerity, — the key of all influence in 
oratory. Certainly he never gave any one the impression that 
he had it. He charmed, he intimidated, but never convinced 
adversaries." 

Whenever you have eaten a " big dinner," you have ani- 
malized your soul ; when you have commanded your body as 
a capable but often unruly servant, you have gained dominion 
over yourself and influence over others. Whenever you have 
listened sympathetically to the cry or the story of sorrow, and 
have reached out your hand in timely aid ; whenever your 
heart has been moved with kindness toward a little child ; 
whenever you have refused to be querulous and complaining, 
and to obtrude your personal troubles upon others ; whenever, 



PERSONAL PREPARATION 473 

even in the crushing sorrows of life, like godly and eloquent 
Aaron, you have held your peace, — by so much have you 
gained power to move the hearts of men by mingled manliness 
and sympathy. The same thing is true of moral enthusiasm, 
of a devotional spirit, of all spiritual life. In a word, it is 
possible day by day to make truth and love a part of our na- 
ture ; and truth and love are the springs of eloquence. But 
do not grudge the necessary time. 

" It takes almost a year for an orange to grow, 
That a boy can eat in a minute. 
Through the long summer days 
How the sun's melting rays 

Have sweetened the juices within it!" 

Eloquence is not a virtue. Theremin's famous argument on 
the subject breaks down under scrutiny into a fallacy of equiv- 
ocation. But the noblest eloquence is, in the way just indi- 
cated, an expression of virtue. One's present self is the outcome 
of one's whole past life ; and in preaching all the good that is 
in the character and spirit becomes effective. If, as some one 
has said, the education of a child should begin a hundred years 
before its birth, the education of a preacher should surely an- 
tedate the day on which he begins to " study for the ministry," 
and should continue to the end of his life. 

The young preacher's imagination is often kindled with the 
idea of preaching as some mighty men of the pulpit have 
preached, — a Whitefield, a Robertson, a Chalmers. He has 
opened his mouth in private and given play to his powers. 
But the feebleness of his first public utterances is something 
remarkable to him, painfully surprising and humiliating. I 
hope you are not an entire stranger to some such experience : 
it may be a foretoken of power and success. But there is one 
fact whose significance you have probably failed to appreciate : 
you have not half considered the man in the preaching. As to 
such a preacher as Whitefield, you are not likely to become 



474 The ministry to the congregation 

very much like him, no matter what your personal character 
and life may be. No difficulty, indeed, in becoming as much 
of a reasoner ; but in the gifts of emotional and dramatic or- 
atory Whitefield was perhaps unsurpassed by any man that 
ever stood before an audience. Had he not been converted, 
he might have been, almost without effort, the greatest actor 
of his age. But supposing yourself to possess his gifts, or even 
greater, have you lived and are you now willing to live as he 
did? Think of his unceasing prayer and watchfulness, his 
boundless benevolence, his untiring zeal for God ; seeking the 
way of salvation when a university student, so deeply in earnest 
as to lie " prostrate on the ground for whole days, in silent or 
vocal prayer " ; swaying his multitudinous congregations, " at 
times so overwhelmed with a sense of God's infinite majesty 
that he was constrained to offer his soul as a blank for the 
divine hand to write on it what should please God " ; on his 
first voyage to America, with an immoral ship's company, 
"preaching, reading prayers, catechizing the children, and 
ministering to the sick, with such zeal that before they reached 
Georgia the whole moral aspect of his floating congregation 
was changed " ; the blood flowing from his mouth after preach- 
ing, more or less frequently, for the last nine years of his life ; 
delivering, as his average number of sermons, fifteen a week 
for many years; making seven voyages to America, in the 
eighteenth century, to find his grave at last in a land of strangers 
three thousand miles from home. It was not Whitefield the 
consummate orator, but Whitefield the eloquent apostle of his 
Lord, whose word wakened the sleeping churches with their 
ease-loving pastors, and brought the godless multitude to their 
knees in terror and penitence before God. It was the spirit 
of Christ in him : it was the preaching of the Cross by one 
whose heart was breaking with love and sorrow for men, and 
who had not determined to know anything among them save 
Jesus Christ the Crucified. 

I assume that yours is no unchristian or unworthy ideal. 



PERSONAL PREPARATION 475 

You would not be content to play upon the lighter emotions 
of a staring crowd, to deliver a mere sparkling declamation, or 
even to win the encomiums of the more intelligent. It is your 
aim not to stir men's blood, but their consciences. You know 
that the preacher has sadly failed whom people simply hear 
and praise. Eloquence is neither more nor less than the 
adaptation of a discourse to the conviction and persuasion of 
the hearers. Hence we do not speak of music as eloquent. 
So a speaker may be unto those that hear him "as a very 
lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play 
well on an instrument," and yet not be a truly eloquent man. 
The most beautiful song or picture or poem is the one that 
excites in the perceiving mind the largest quantity and the 
highest quality of esthetic pleasure. The most eloquent speech 
is the one that delivers the strongest pressure of persuasion 
upon the will of the hearer to turn him to the noblest ends. It 
is said that when Athanase Coquerel preached, the people 
were inclined to exclaim, "Bravo!" but on hearing Adolphe 
Monod they were ready to respond, "Amen!" Which was 
the more eloquent speaker? 

If, then, your conscience is at peace with God in this matter, 
it is the preachers of real power to win men to the Cross whose 
example you would emulate. And this I would say : Acquaint 
yourself with their inner life, observe their daily walk, make 
some estimate of the constancy and abundance of their labors 
in the kingdom of heaven ; and see how many exceptions you 
can find to the rule that a man's whole life must be tremulous 
with the latent lightning of divine power if he would have it 
blaze and strike in his speech. 

One Christian grace in particular that you will note in these 
mighty men of the pulpit, is their joyousness. In almost every 
instance they have been men of a glad and cheerful heart. 
There is a certain buoyancy of spirit that has sustained them 
in the long endeavor of life, and made their presence every- 
where a benediction. Wesley said of himself that ten thousand 



476 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

cares sat as lightly on his mind as ten thousand hairs on his 
head. David Livingstone in Africa wrote home that " so far 
from being despondent, he found it necessary to suppress a 
tendency to levity." And thus it was through his whole thirty- 
three years of perilous labor and almost superhuman endurance. 
" Even when prostrated with fever his heart was always light." 
Sadness is incompetence. The preacher who glooms over his 
studies and along the streets and into the pulpit, will deliver 
a feeble and soggy sermon. Doubtless in the case of every 
faithful minister there will be inward groanings and prostra- 
tions, with strong cries and tears, again and again. But out 
of these may come a diviner joy, with victory and peace. So 
even the severest personal and ministerial trials furnish no 
reason why we should not work, though with the deepest seri- 
ousness, brightly, songfully. " The joy of the Lord shall be 
your strength." I know a preacher who says, " I was whipped 
into the ministry." A man of high moral tone and a genuine 
preaching genius, he seems to have attained but a moderate 
measure of success in his work. I have in mind another, far 
inferior to the first in ability, and showing no greater conscien- 
tiousness, who draws men into his congregation and wins them 
to the Saviour wherever he ministers. The gladdest moments 
of his life, so he has told me, are in the pulpit ; but there and 
everywhere his appearance is that of one of the happiest men 
on earth. If we would preach strongly, the sermon must not 
be pitched in the minor key ; it must have in it somewhat of 
the herald angel's song,— " Behold, I bring you good tidings 
of great joy." 

Now we may hear it said, not without some signs of impa- 
tience : " I do not believe in so many discussions and rules ; 
preaching should be simple and natural, and that's about the 
whole matter." And undoubtedly there is truth in the familiar 
complaint. Naturalness is a sine qua non of eloquence ; " the 
heart of the wise teacheth his mouth." But for this very reason 
it is important that the preacher should have the right sort of 



PERSONAL PREPARATION 477 

nature. For when it is said that to speak effectively a man 
must speak naturally, it is surely not meant that to speak in 
accordance with any nature whatever will be effective. We 
have no use for natural faults and defects, except to get rid of 
them,— as one would cure a diseased liver or a feeble limb. A 
cripple can do no better than to walk naturally, so long as he 
is a cripple ; but is it unnatural that he should try to get well 
and strong? We are all naturally ignorant and depraved : are 
ignorance and depravity elements of power? We go astray 
from infancy, speaking lies : is eloquence, then, to be described 
as lies on fire, rather than as "truth on fire"? Naturally we 
cannot talk at all. Somebody had to teach us and we had to 
learn how to articulate words and to construct sentences. 
Left to untrained nature, the words of a Milton, a Bunyan, a 
Robert Hall, would have been grunts and groans and inarticu- 
late cries. Words are not natural but arbitrary signs of ideas ; 
and yet we should get on very awkwardly and in a most pov- 
erty-stricken manner without them. Certainly a man must 
speak naturally ; but he will speak to little purpose till he has 
made many acquisitions. The song of the bird is natural: 
Jenny Lind had to learn hers. Our humbler friends of the 
fields and woods have many reason-mocking instincts ; we 
have none. Our distinction is in the possibilities of our 
nature,— that we can learn, can grow, can become even unto 
eternity. Life to a man is growth and education, a continual 
becoming. 

Train your body to health, to activity, to grace of manner 
and movement. Establish the habit of deep, full breathing. 
This will not only improve your general health by the more 
perfect aeration of the blood, but will certainly increase your 
lung-power and the strength of your voice. A suitable breath- 
ing exercise, taken not less than three hours after a meal, will 
be decidedly serviceable. Even a few deep inhalations just 
before speaking adds appreciably to one's ease and force of 
utterance. Breathe through your nose; or, as the throat-doctors 



478 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

say, " Shut your mouth and live." If you stammer, as did Cur- 
ran, the famous Irish orator, in his boyhood (" Stuttering Jack 
Curran," he was called) ; or if your speech be thick and indis- 
tinct (like that of a famous American orator of whom it was 
said that when he was a boy one could hardly tell whether he 
spoke Choctaw or English), determine that it shall not be so. 
Accustom yourself to an erect carriage, not lounging or walk- 
ing stoop-shouldered. Let these things become habitual in 
your physical life ; and then speak naturally. 

Enrich your mind with knowledge, train it to accuracy of 
thought and readiness of utterance ; and speak naturally. 

Above all, be filled with the Holy Spirit; let the Word of 
Christ dwell in you richly ; though the outward man perish, 
do you yourself live, renewed in righteousness and love from 
day to day ; and then before the congregation speak right out 
naturally the truth that has become your own. It depends on 
what we are whether our natural speech will be effective. 

You may safely dismiss all prejudice against the study of 
elocution,— or, as it is now more suggestively called, expression. 
Is not public speaking an art? The ancient classic orators 
cultivated it with great assiduity ; and so have many of their 
most prominent successors — Whitefield, for example— in mod- 
ern times. No objection can be brought against the art of 
expression that could not be urged with equal propriety against 
music, grammar, and many other arts of acknowledged utility. 
All our teachers, indeed, when we come to understand them, 
believe in it; even Whately, whose well-known argument on 
the subject is directed against a false system of elocutionary 
culture, and not against the true ; even Phillips Brooks, although 
he declines to say anything of " the marvelous ways of those 
who teach it," and believes in the true teacher somewhat as 
he believes " in the existence of Halley's comet, which comes 
into sight of this earth once in about seventy-six years." 

The study of elocution does seem to damage some young 
speakers by fixing their attention on the manner of speaking ; 



PERSONAL PREPARATION 479 

whereas it is essential that the whole mind shall be absorbed 
in the objects properly before it. 

" The centipede was happy quite 

Until the toad for fun 
Said, ' Pray, which foot comes after which? ' 
This worked her mind to such a pitch 
She lay distracted in a ditch, 

Considering how to run." 

But where is the art or science that does not at some stage 
give rise to similar crudities? Sometimes when we hear young 
men at college talk of " sitting a chair in front of the fire," or 
of somebody's "sending a message to you and I," we are in- 
clined to believe that the attention they have given, perhaps 
for a half-score of years, to the grammar of their native tongue, 
has not been wholly beneficial. I know of an old-time teacher 
in the Pine Hills who, through some mistaken notion as to 
the scope of a rule of syntax, discarded entirely the use of the 
word is, invariably substituting the plural form, and teaching 
his pupils that "is are not correct." Nevertheless, who is 
unwilling to retain English grammar in our courses of instruc- 
tion? Medicine often makes the patient sick while curing his 
disease. When the elocutionary " rule " has become, through 
practice, a part of yourself, of your own mind and nerve and 
muscle, it will no longer be thought of, but will have added 
itself to your personal unconscious power. 

The true study and practice of the art of expression will 
give you clearer insight into the principles, which are divinely 
established laws, of all effective discourse ; will shame away 
many a fault ; will strengthen your command of both muscle 
and mind ; in a word, will tend to make you a self-possessed, 
self-forgetful, and thoroughly natural speaker. Are your lips 
flexible? is your enunciation distinct? has your voice sufficient 
compass? is your pronunciation correct (do you say " cloze " 
or " clo/7/es " ? " srine " or " serine " ? " hunderd " or " hun- 



480 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

drcd " ? " bretheren " or " brethren " ?)? Learn your defects 
under the best accessible guidance of book or living teacher, 
and be willing to correct them. Covet excellence in all the 
elements of expression. Why should any one say it is not 
worth while ? But the neglect of it has two powerful allies in 
the hearts of most young speakers : one is vanity and the other 
is indolence. For the acquisition of any great art requires a 
frank acknowledgment of our deficiencies, and diligent, per- 
severing effort at improvement. 

But there must also be some specific personal preparation to 
preach. Opportunity must be given to gather up the energies 
and concentrate them on the work in hand. No matter how 
good a scythe the mower may swing, it may be well for him 
to whet it before beginning his swath. 

There is a physical preparation. Very strenuous is the use 
to which the body is subjected in preaching the Gospel. Brain 
and nerves are tasked to the utmost : let them be in the best 
possible condition. 

A common mistake is to enter the pulpit tired. Indeed, it 
is well to avoid fatigue, as far as practicable, at all times. 
Weariness is weakness ; often it is irritability and fretfulness. 
You need not go so far as a noble Christian woman who re- 
garded it " a disgrace to be tired and wicked to be sick." But 
there is no little wisdom in her exaggerated statement of a 
principle of conduct. Vary your work ; do it with a cheerful 
heart ; observe the laws of health ; and look upon a sense of 
lassitude as discreditable rather than interesting. Make it a 
rule at least to drag no dead weight of a body into the pulpit. 
Otherwise, no matter how perfect your intellectual preparation 
may be, your exhausted nerves, prod and belabor them as you 
may, will not respond either to the audience without or to the 
soul within. 

In the case of most men the worst day of the week for 
whatever really hard work may be necessary to pulpit prepara- 
tion is Saturday ; and decidedly the worst fragment of a day 



PERSONAL PREPARATION 481 

is Sunday morning. Dr. David H. Greer has said that, 
while some people have a notion that Sunday is the only 
real work-day for preachers, it is to him the easiest day in the 
week, the day in which he has the least to do. Dr. Deems's 
Sunday morning sermon was ready by Friday night, and was 
then dismissed from mind. Saturday was a day, not, indeed, 
of idleness, but of nerve-rest ; and on awaking Sunday morn- 
ing he could hardly wait in Lis eagerness for the hour of 
preaching. 

It is Dr. Cuyler's rule " nevei to touch a sermon by lamp- 
light." Beecher also believed that the habit of night-study 
shortens the lives of ministers and weakens the tone of their 
work. But " it is especially bad," he held, " for a preacher to 
prepare his sermon on Saturday night. It is bad for a man 
to keep his brain at the top of its power from early on Satur- 
day till late at night, so that he sleeps in a fiery dream of 
sermon." The great pulpit genius and political orator was 
right. Not that the mind ever becomes tired ; but the brain 
does, and cannot do its work again till it is rested. 

Following such examples, you will find that Monday, instead 
of being " blue," will be the best day of the whole week for 
getting fresh thought for sermons. 

As to your eating habits with reference to the pulpit, I need 
say but a word. It is obvious that we must not have the 
nervous force engaged about a stomach full of food, when 
every vibration of it is needed in the brain. A light and easily 
digested meal, or a mere fragment of one, or none at all, before 
preaching, always. I have known but one preacher who said 
that he ate as much as his appetite called for, whether at this 
time or at any other ; and the character of his preaching was 
not such as to commend his example to others. Quintilian 
declines giving any admonition on the subject of speaking 
with the stomach heavy with a full meal, on the ground that 
he cannot suppose that any " man who retains possession of 
his senses would be guilty of such folly." 



482 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Of immediate intellectual preparation for the pulpit I have 
already spoken sufficiently in other connections. But I must 
ask you to give heed, above all, to the preparation of the 
heart. 

Let each sermon sink deep down in our hearts before we 
undertake the communication of it to others. Let it renew 
our consciousness of the indwelling Christ. Let it search our 
consciences. " Thou therefore that teachest another, teachest 
thou not thyself? " It is a time for repentance. Is there a 
sin about which we hesitate to preach fairly and fully, because 
we ourselves have come under its dominion? Is there a waste- 
ful and injurious physical habit— such as the use of tobacco, 
for example — concerning which self-indulgence has closed our 
lips? Is there a duty which, because of personal neglect, we 
cannot heartily inculcate? Let us humble ourselves before 
the Lord ; and the " due time " when He exalts us, according 
to His word, will be the time to preach. Have earthly cares 
and ambitions returned upon us, or the insidious spirit of carnal 
ease crept back into the soul, so that the kingship of Christ is 
threatened ? How can we preach Him as Saviour and Lord 
till we have consciously enthroned Him again? Even though 
our walk has been close with God in purity and in peace, we 
shall still wish to preach every sermon to ourselves first of all. 
The first and the most teachable audience should be the 
preacher. 

Stand on the topmost rock of the Peaks of Otter ; far below 
see the great trees as shrubs, and men as pigmies, and dwell- 
ing-houses as doll-houses, and villages as white and brown 
splotches on the dim, green landscape ; think of the busy, 
multiform, anxious human life upon whose scene you are 
gazing, — and how small does it all appear, and how vast the 
heavens above and the universe in which our earth is but a 
pebble on an infinite shore! So do all earthly interests and 
anxieties appear as a very little thing to the soul that has 
climbed far above them, while the Cross of Christ and judg- 



PERSONAL PREPARATION 483 

ment and God are revealed in their eternal worth and great- 
ness. Thus our vanity shrinks and shrivels away ; the petty 
and obtrusive sinful self is crucified ; we are not our own. 
We come to the waiting congregation in the house of God as 
from another house of God, holier and more glorious ; we 
come as prophets and apostolic witnesses who cannot but 
speak the things they have heard and seen. "Which voice 
we heard when we were with Him on the holy mount." 

Shall we seek, then, an overpowering sense of responsibility? 
No ; not an overpowering sense. That will benumb the fac- 
ulties of speech. In our solemn consciousness of duty let 
there be the prevailing note of sympathy, love, and joy. Let 
not our faces be rigid with a dead solemnity ; let us count it 
a joy to appear before the people with the words of eternal 
life. That will set the faculties free for winning and effective 
speech. Dr. Charles F. Deems, after nearly fifty years of 
preaching, said that he still had a sense of responsibility that 
" frightened " him, as in his earliest ministry, — " so that I never 
even now go into the pulpit without it, and sometimes it is so 
severe that I am on the point of running across the river to 
Jersey and letting things go as they will." Yet who ever 
preached the Gospel in a more genial spirit, or with more 
apparent personal enjoyment? 

What kind of preaching can the man do that has to force 
himself into the pulpit and lash his soul into some fervor of 
emotion? There must be fullness of thought and earnest de- 
sire,— together with the feeling, " I cannot preach," an urgency 
of utterance that will not be restrained. The apostle's " Who 
is sufficient for these things?" but interblended with this the 
same apostle's " / long to see you, that I may impart unto you 
some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established." Even 
lion-hearted Martin Luther declared that he trembled whenever 
he ascended the pulpit ; but what earthly power short of phy- 
sical coercion could ever have kept him out of it? It was the 
ancient prophet's experience: "Then said I, Ah, Lord God, 



484 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

behold, I cannot speak ; for I am a child." And yet he must; 
for— "The Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth. 
And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in 
thy mouth." So Jeremiah spoke, and could not keep silent ; 
and his words, God's words from his mouth, were a flame of 
fire. 

Read Simpson's " Lectures on Preaching," Matheson's " Voices of the 
Spirit," Richard Cecil's " Remains," 



LECTURE XXIX 

THE TWOFOLD ACTION IN SPEECH 

IT is plain enough that for the principles of eloquence we 
must go back of voice and gesture to the man himself. It 
is not the body that is eloquent, but the soul. Nevertheless the 
soul is embodied, and can reach its fellow-men through the 
body only. Let the most powerful speaker on earth have his 
tongue paralyzed, his eyes put out, and the skin of his face 
burned off : the soul within may glow and strive, may be beau- 
tiful and mighty with great truths and tender sympathies and 
highest impulses of utterance, but all to no purpose. The 
means of communication are wanting. 

Similarly if the complexion be cloudy, the features inexpres- 
sive, the voice feeble or strained or husky or hollow, the gesture 
meaningless or distracted,— whatever the physical defect, by 
so much is the soul embarrassed in the transmission of oratorical 
power. To the writer the physical elements of influence are 
not available ; but to the speaker they are indispensable. The 
light within will shine in vain if the vessel be not translucent. 

We have to consider, then, both the action of the body and 
that of the soul — instrument and agent — in speech. 

I. Voice, facial expression, and gesture are the Bodily Ac- 
tions : and so, through the noblest two of the senses,— hearing, 
the most penetrative and enrapturing, and sight, the most in- 
tellectual and refined, — through waves of air and of ether, the 
energy of the soul is transmitted to other souls in its presence. 
485 



486 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Friendship has learned to utilize another sense, the pressure of 
the hand, the touch; but this means of personal contact oratory 
must forego. 

I shall attempt no more in this connection than the rather 
ungracious task of emphasizing some of the physical faults of 
speech. These, in fact, are innumerable : with every new 
speaker some new fault may be expected to appear. Besides, 
they are often but the external symptoms of an oratorically 
feeble or diseased action of the soul. The cure must go deeper 
than the symptoms : nevertheless we may be sure that it is not 
effected so long as these remain. 

Let me note, then, with a word or two of emphasis, a few 
familiar faults. 

i . As to voice : 

To begin on too low or too high a key (as bad in a sermon 
as in a song). Begin with the middle voice ; that is to say, 
on the key naturally taken in animated, not excited, conversa- 
tion. From this line the voice may rise and to it return, as 
feeling may prompt, without degenerating into a squeaking 
falsetto in one direction or a guttural murmur in the other. 
Especially to be avoided" is the attempt to make the farthest- 
off persons in the audience hear, by raising the key of the 
voice. Such an attempt is likely to prove fatal to all ease and 
effectiveness of delivery. Put mor e force into the voice, and 
thus project it, on the same key, to the required distance. 

To confound the ideas of loudness and distinctness. The 
sound of a bell will go farther and will be more easily recog- 
nized than the noise of a falling belfry. " There is a kind of 
voice naturally qualified to make itself heard, not by its 
strength, but by a peculiar excellence of tone " (Quintilian). 

To speak in a monotone, or in a monotonous succession of 
whisperings and bawlings, or in a cantillating, recitative, sing- 
song tone. 

To speak in any acquired " tone." " The greatest fault of 
all," says Wesley, " is the speaking with a tone,— in some in- 



THE TWOFOLD ACTION IN SPEECH 487 

stances womanish and squeaking ; in others, singing or canting ; 
in others, high, swelling, and theatrical ; in others, awful and 
solemn ; and in others, odd, whimsical, and whining." 

To allow the lungs to become exhausted of air, not filling 
them in the momentary pauses of speech ; to fill them audibly ; 
to let a large quantity of breath (the raw material which is to 
be made into sound) escape unvocalized ; to distress the ears 
of all hearers with the " vocule." 

To destroy the sense of passages by mechanical emphasis 
and inflections (by the falling inflection, e.g., where the rising 
is required) ; to try to emphasize almost every word, which 
will result in emphasizing almost none ; to let the voice fall 
needlessly at the end of sentences ; to swallow some parts of 
words. 

To scream. Vociferation may or may not be a mark of 
earnestness: it is never an effectual means of persuasion. 
Oratory is not violent. Mention the name of any great 
preacher that has been a screamer. Some of Patrick Henry's 
most powerful appeals were said to have had " almost the 
stillness of solitary thinking." Wesley's famous charge to one 
of his American preachers is not yet obsolete : " Scream no 
more, at the peril of your soul. God now warns you by me 
whom He has set over you. Speak as earnestly as you can, 
but do not scream. Speak with all your heart, but with a 
moderate voice. It was said of our Lord, ' He shall not cry' ; 
the word properly means ' He shall not scream.' Herein be 
a follower of me, as I am of Christ. I often speak loud, often 
vehemently ; but I never scream." 

To suppose that mere rapidity of utterance is a sign of feel- 
ing and vivacity. It may show the lack of life, mechanicalness, 
— as seems to be the case often in the repeating of the Lord's 
Prayer and other familiar forms of worship. 

To suppose that extreme slowness is a sign of deliberation 
and profound thought. It may be a sign of the absence of 
thought. Stupidity is slow. 



488 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

To speak precipitately, so as to fail of all impressiveness, or 
to speak so sluggishly as to become a weariness to every active- 
minded hearer; to speak out of time with the sentiment (as, 
e.g., to pronounce pathetic passages rapidly or impassioned 
passages deliberately). 

To pronounce pathetic passages in a loud, high tone. Pathos 
will have the minor key or none. 

To speak through the nose, — or rather not through the nose. 

To speak with the mouth hardly open and the lips well-nigh 
motionless. 

To speak while using the handkerchief about the mouth or 
nose. 

To take frequent sips of water, to expectorate, to clear the 
throat needlessly. 

2. As to facial expression, attitude, and motion: 

To overlook the significant fact that every hearer is also a 
spectator, and instinctively feels that he would lose much were 
he to listen with his eyes shut. 

To hold the head in any unnatural position. " For by cast- 
ing down the head humility is signified ; by throwing it back, 
haughtiness ; by leaning it on one side, languor ; by keeping it 
rigid and unmoved, a certain degree of rudeness " (Quintilian). 

To have the face fixed in wooden rigidity, instead of facile 
to every sentiment as it is felt and uttered ; to have it distorted 
as if in pain. 

To speak with closed eyes, or to look away from the people. 
Through the eyes souls look forth, to see and to be seen by 
others. Even to cover the eyes with glasses, either through 
necessity or choice, is to drop a curtain before the windows of 
the soul. But of course the sympathetic look of the orator is 
not a stare, not looking a man out of countenance. 

To put the hands in the pockets or in any other part of the 
clothing ; to slap them audibly together ; to fling them about 
wildly ; to saw the air. 

To gesticulate habitually with the palm of the hand down- 



THE TWOFOLD ACTION IN SPEECH 480 

ward ; to clench the fist, or to point with the index-finger, 
meaninglessly ; to slap the thigh ; to pound the Bible ; to use 
a fan, no matter how sultry the weather. 

To gesticulate habitually with the hands higher than the 
head or lower than the heart ; to gesticulate with eye-glasses, 
handkerchief, or anything else in the hand. 

To sway from side to side; to swagger; to shrug the 
shoulders ; to twist and shake the body ; to lean on the pulpit- 
desk for support. 

To address the people on the right of the pulpit, to the 
neglect of those on the left ; to turn the back on the audience, 
for the benefit of some brother in the pulpit. 

To place the feet so as to make the posture unsteady, either 
by twisting one foot round the other, or in any other way ; to 
bend the knees ; to stand on tiptoe, " as if accustomed to ad- 
dressing audiences over a high wall " ; to place the feet too 
far apart. 

To walk the platform. Pacing to and fro is either a restless 
or a meditative exercise. Restlessness is dispersion of energy ; 
oratory concentrates. And meditation is for the study; the 
Peripatetics were philosophers, not orators. 

To indulge in any mannerism of speech or gesture : that is 
to say, in any manner that is manner only. 

To try at any time to express more than you feel, attempting 
to give that which you do not have. It is untruthful and vain 
to elevate the voice and strike out violently with the hands 
while passion lies fast asleep. 

Now the knowledge of your defects and blunders in delivery 
need not dishearten you ; for " he who makes no mistakes 
makes nothing else." It should excite that diligent and earnest 
care through which only they can be corrected. 

II. But if the real speaker is the soul, — if the true logos is 
within, not on the lips or the air, — what we have chiefly to 
consider is the Action of the Soul in Speech. 

What is the fundamental principle of this movement? The 



4&0 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

word that most nearly expresses it is self-abandonment, with its 
complementary term, self-concentration. To no one is the 
German proverb more applicable than to the public speaker : 
" Do not be miserly with yourself." Eloquence is a secret, to 
be sure, — a mystery, a simple, indefinable gift of God, like 
music, poetry, beauty, love. But here we come closest to its 
hiding-place. No man was ever eloquent, just as no man was 
ever happy, by directly trying to be. The conscious effort 
must be directed toward an entirely different and far greater 
object. The speaker is to be thinking only about convincing 
his hearers and persuading them to choose and act as he wills. 
If the eloquence which is tributary to this end does not then 
arise of itself, he may rest assured that it could not otherwise 
have been produced. Self-attention must forever keep it down. 
The speaker of whom the criticism may be justly made, " He 
listens to himself while he speaks," must be uninspiring and 
feeble. 

Nor is oratory in this matter an exception, as compared with 
other great arts. " The power of the masters is in self-annihi- 
lation." What spoils very much of the music we hear? The 
interest of the musician in himself or in the manner of his play- 
ing, when his soul should be absorbed in the music. "A 
panting man thinks of himself as a clever swimmer ; but a fish 
swims much better and takes his performance as a matter of 
course." We never do anything thoroughly well till the mere 
manner or fact of doing it has become, like the fish's swimming, 
a matter of course and unthought of. Does not the principle 
hold good even of that art which is so far above all others that 
we do not call it by their name,— the divine art of benevolence? 
A man does you a favor of whose value he shows himself dis- 
tinctly conscious, — he has calculated every pennyworth of it, — 
and you would rather it had been left undone. But some one 
offers you a service because it is in his heart to do so ; the light 
of love and kindness is on his face, and he himself unaware 
that " the skin of his face doth shine." That deed sinks deep 



THE TWOFOLD ACTION IN SPEECH 491 

in your heart. It is the unconscious ministration of good- 
ness that wins and subdues ; it is love that is mighty. There- 
fore, " If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but 
have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging 
cymbal." 

The speaker has a certain definite quantum of energy ; never 
too much, never enough for the full accomplishment of his 
purpose. It is fatal to waste more than half of it on himself. 
I was impressed with an incidental remark of a lady who told 
me recently of having heard two distinguished preachers from 
England: "They seemed to care for nothing but to de- 
liver their Master's message." Could these men ever have 
gained the power of persuasive speech that has given them 
celebrity in all the churches if their preaching had been for 
self-display? Of Canon Liddon it was said that he "spoke 
like one possessed," utterly self-oblivious, rapt, completely 
identified with the work he was doing. And — as one result 
— up to the very close of his ministry about five thousand 
people came regularly to hear him. 

All statements and remarks by the preacher concerning his 
own dispositions and the manner in which he is treating his 
subject are contrary to the spirit of self-abandonment. " I feel 
my inadequacy properly to present this subject," " For lack 
of time I shall here have to omit several important considera- 
tions," " You will notice that I have not insisted," — all such 
expressions, innocent as they may seem, betray the preacher's 
desire to set himself right with his hearers, or his consciousness 
of his own moods and methods rather than of the truth he is 
delivering. The what, the to whom, and the what for of 
preaching are lost in the how. 

It is equally bad to be thinking about one's physical com- 
fort in the pulpit. I have seen a preacher fan himself serenely 
all through a sermon on self-denial and Christian consecration. 
It reminds one of the man who wrote a book against ambition, 
and adorned the title-page with his own likeness. Such self- 



492 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

nursing! Let us be so interested and absorbed in what we stand 
before the people for as to make it impossible. 

A vexatious difficulty with young speakers, and on special 
occasions with many older speakers, is that result of self- 
attention which is known as embarrassment. It is a crushing 
experience : to feel one's subject strongly in the study, to be 
eager for the speaking hour, and then to feel nothing before the 
audience but feebleness and fear. In proportion as this state 
of feeling prevails, all freedom and force of delivery are out of 
the question. The audience is the unwilling master, and the 
speaker the unwilling slave and trembling coward before it. 

Now it is pertinent to inquire to what extent this painful 
trepidation may be owing to vanity. Ask yourself, " Why am I 
more embarrassed before intelligent than before rude hearers? 
why will just one distinguished stranger confuse me? If I 
knew that the audience had never heard of me and would 
never think of me again, would their presence embarrass 
me ? " The answer of conscience may bring you to your 
knees ; and surely there is no better attitude in which either to 
keep off or to overcome an oratorical error which is at the 
same time a moral delinquency. Realizing before God his 
position as an ordained messenger to sinful men, how 
can a minister of the Gospel stand confused or afraid in the 
presence of any man or any assembly? Norman Macleod 
wrote to his wife, concerning a sermon he had delivered at 
Balmoral before the royal family : " I preached without a note 
the same sermon I preached at Morven ; and I never looked 
once at the royal seat, but solely at the congregation. I tried 
to forget the great ones I saw, and to remember the great 
Ones I saw not, and so I preached from my heart, and with 
as much freedom really as at a mission station." Even this 
great-minded preacher had to make an effort to keep the 
simple thought of duty and opportunity before him — " I tried 
to forget the great ones " ; but it was successful, and at the 
close of the letter he could say, " In after-years teach your boy 



THE TWOFOLD ACTION IN SPEECH 493 

this lesson,— not to seek his work, but to receive it when given 
him, and to do it to God without fear" 

But better even than this sense of our position as ambassa- 
dors of Christ is the constraining power of love and solicitude 
for those to whom we have been sent. Pray such a prayer as 
that of Samuel Walker, of Truro : " Lord, turn the fear of 
men's faces into a love of their souls." Love will make its 
way. It is not timid and nerveless, but steady, serene, daring. 
In the soul, as in material bodies, a right center of movement 
prevents agitation and secures peace and power. 

True, the speaker may be saved from the trepidation of em- 
barrassment by self-assertion, by brazen effrontery, by a strong 
will bent on the accomplishment of a selfish purpose ; but he 
may be saved from it also by self-denial and devotion to an 
unselfish and holy purpose. Which path of deliverance we 
should choose is not a question, either in oratory or in morals. 

But there may be other causes of embarrassment. The or- 
ator is sensitive. He keenly feels the presence of other men. 
He is modest and deferential before them. He is tremblingly 
alive to the extraordinary demands of his position,— hundreds 
of souls before him, and he alone on his feet to open his lips 
and break the oppressive silence. A preacher once told me 
that never in all his life, in conversation, in preaching, in any 
circumstances whatever, had he experienced the feeling of em- 
barrassment. But I have no reason to believe him freer from 
vanity than many others; and it is certain that he lacked the 
characteristic sensitiveness of the orator. So far, then, as the 
feeling of embarrassment comes from the sympathetic tremor 
of a speaking soul standing before others listening in silence, 
it need not be deplored, but only controlled. In itself a weak- 
ness, it is nevertheless significant of a certain condition of 
power. It is not like the soldier's agitation in the awful hush 
that precedes the storm of battle, or when the first horrible 
shells come shrieking through the ranks. The soldier's agita- 
tion shows no qualification to kill men while they are trying to 



a 

49-i THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

kill him ; and hence is no sign of fitness for his work. But the 
tremor that shakes the orator's nerves as he first faces his au- 
dience is an expression of fitness for the work before him, — fit- 
ness to feel the presence of souls, and to touch them with 
some touch of quickening power. 

The greatest speakers seem to know all about this experience. 
Curran, the Irish orator, did — at least in the beginning of his 
career. Speaking to a friend about one of his first appear- 
ances before an audience, he said : " There were only six or 
seven persons present, and the room could not have contained 
as many more ; yet was it, to my panic-struck imagination, as 
if I were the central object in nature, and assembled millions 
were gazing upon me in breathless expectation. I became dis- 
mayed and dumb." I have heard John B. Gough declare that 
he never faced an audience without a shaking of the knees. 
Cicero had made a similar confession two thousand years be- 
fore: "Indeed, what I observe in you, I very frequently ex- 
perience in myself, that I turn pale in the outset of my speech, 
and feel a tremor through my whole thoughts, as it were, and 
limbs. When a young man I was once so timid in commenc- 
ing an accusation that I owed to Q. Maximus the greatest of 
obligations for immediately dismissing the assembly, as soon as 
he saw me absolutely disheartened and incapacitated through 
fear " (" De Oratore," Book I., ch. xxvi.). Hawthorne, in his 
" English Note-book," tells of a conversation between Lord 
Bulwer and a certain discouraged speaker who feared he would 
never be able to get command of an audience, because it 
seemed so hard to get command of himself. " Do you feel 
your heart beat," asked Bulwer, " when you are going to 
speak?" "Yes." " Do all your ideas forsake you? " "Yes." 
" Do you wish the floor to open and swallow you? " " Yes." 
" Why, then, you will make an orator." 

But inasmuch as the feeling of embarrassment, whether with 
or without encouraging significance, is self-directed, the im- 
mediate effect is damaging. 



LECTURE XXX 

THE ACTION OF THE SOUL— ON SUBJECT, AUDIENCE, OBJECT 

IET us now spend half an hour in looking somewhat more 
-J particularly at the positive principle corresponding to ora- 
torical self-abandonment. This abandonment of one's self is 
for the sake of self-concentration upon three things : 

i. Upon the Subject. 

No matter what may have been the kind and amount of prep- 
aration given to the sermon, — whether without a single written 
or memorized word, or resulting in a full manuscript laid in 
the open Bible before you, — the subject is your subject ; you 
have it in hand now, and are concerned wi h none other what- 
soever. Your thoughts will sometimes flit away, just as they 
would often play the vagrant in the preparation to preach. 
But let it be distinctly forbidden. Think your subject, and no 
other. 

One stimulus you will feel in the pulpit that was lacking in 
the study, — the stimulus of an emergency. Utter absence of 
mind now must mean total failure (unless, indeed, the mechan- 
ical and meaningless reading of a manuscript be accepted as 
in some measure a success). The study was an inland pool : 
your boat is now on the open sea, and must ride the waves or 
perish. 

Though your stock of mental energy be extraordinary (and 
is it?), you have none to spare for alien ideas. Concentrate 
on your theme. Become strongly conscious of it. Thus 
495 



496 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

through thought sensibility will be set aglow, and appropriate 
language will come of itself. Here every demonstration that 
you have ever followed in mathematics will be helpful, — every 
hour of patient thought on any subject. On the other hand, 
every hour of aimless reverie or indulgence of a wandering 
mind in your studies, will administer its measure of retribu- 
tive justice by weakening your delivery. But whatever the 
degree of mental discipline attained, necessity is now laid 
upon you ; a crisis has been reached ; and you must will to 
see that truth and no other which you are preaching now. 

2. Upon the Audience. 

Even the writer cannot afford to be wholly occupied with 
his theme. In imagination he must see his composition under 
the eye of the reader, and must so write as to win the reader's 
attention and convey the desired influence to his mind. Said 
a poet in old age, writing to a friend concerning his latest 
book : " I don't know of any reason I had for publishing it, 
save a yearning desire to speak to my friends once more." If 
it be so with the writer, much more must the preacher in his 
study see his "friends" in the congregation, and be talking 
with them. But above all the speaker, when actually before 
his audience, must be sensitively conscious of their presence. 

I once heard the complaint of some members of a plain 
country congregation against their two pastors— of whom I 
was one — that they " seemed to be studying so hard in the 
pulpit." There is reason to believe the objection not ill- 
founded. From insufficient preparation, or from lack of sym- 
pathy with their hearers, or from both causes, these preachers 
were inclined to use the pulpit as a thinking-place rather 
than a speaking-place. Their faces wore the look of thought, 
not of speech ; of monologue, not of dialogue. Their eyes 
were fixed, abstracted, dry, instead of moist and sparkling 
with human sympathy. They were not enough like Robert 
McCheyne : " He spoke from the pulpit as one earnestly oc- 
cupied with the souls before him. He made them feel sym- 



THE ACTION OF THE SOUL 497 

pathy with what he spoke, for his own eye and heart were on 
them." Our commission is not to soliloquize upon the Gospel 
in the presence of the people, but to preach it to them. Nor 
is it that of the poet,— expression for its own sake ; but expres- 
sion to men, and for the sake of gaining them for God. 

Imagine a successful lawyer falling into this mood of ab- 
stractedness while pleading at the bar. The accounts given 
us of such wonderful forensic geniuses, for instance, as Thomas 
Erskine and Rufus Choate emphasize the intentness with 
which, while all aflame with their theme, they kept reading the 
faces of the jury and plying them with argument and appeal, 
till the most impassive showed signs of sympathy and convic- 
tion. We cannot think of an earnest advocate as so interested 
in simply unfolding his cause and talking about it to himself 
that he practically ignores the judges before him, with whom 
alone the decision rests. Equally impossible would it be to 
imagine a powerful preacher delivering his sermon without a 
prevailing consciousness of direct address to the congregation. 

A speaker before his audience is not a scientific investigator, 
— not an Archimedes. See the rapt old mathematician, sev- 
enty-four years of age, deep in his studies during the siege of 
Syracuse, the city in which he is living. The time seems all 
unfavorable for profound thought ; but to him no time is un- 
favorable. The final assault is made; the city falls; the 
Roman soldiers rush into his room. " Do not disturb my 
circles," says the absorbed and delighted thinker ; and receives 
his mortal wound. Socrates would probably have seized the 
opportunity to have a talk with the soldiers. We use thoughts 
upon men, and as preachers have no other use for them what- 
ever. The speaker is not an Archimedes with his circles, but 
rather an Ole Bull with his violin. When one of his hearers 
was talking with the wonderful violinist about the effect of a cer- 
tain piece—" The Mother's Prayer "—which had brought tears 
to all eyes the evening before, " Do you know," he replied, 
" that I do not produce these effects by the mere sound of my 



498 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

violin ? I produce them by the direct action of my mind upon 
the minds of the audience. I employ the tones of the instru- 
ment simply for the purpose of opening the channels through 
which I myself act upon them." How he did this the great 
artist could not explain ; but that his mental attitude toward 
the audience was the right attitude for both musician and ora- 
tor there cannot be the shadow of a doubt. 

Here is one reason why an apostrophe, unless it be very 
brief and emotional, — in a word, inevitable, — is out of place in 
public speech. It is a speaking, not to the people, but only at 
them. It is an attempt, often painfully unnatural, to address 
an imaginary hearer in their presence. I once heard a very 
sensible young preacher apostrophize the patriarch Job in the 
following strain : 

"Ah, Job! go forth and sever thyself from thy fellows. 
Depart from the habitation of man. Forsake thy loved com- 
panions that still remain. Betake thee to the ash-heap and 
the ruins without the gate ; make thy dwelling in the noisome 
tomb ; be bedfellow to the moldering skeleton and fit com- 
panion for bats and owls. Thy skin shall dry and burst in 
cracks innumerable. Thy flesh shall rot and fall from thy 
bones. Thy joints shall rust and petrify. Thy hair shall 
bleach to an unnatural whiteness, and drop from thy skull. 
Thine eyes shall canker and thy sight forsake thee. Thy 
moldering teeth shall crumble and thy breath shall foul the at- 
mosphere. Thy voice shall harsher grow, as the blight turns 
toward thine inward parts, until at last, flesh and even bones 
a mass of living corruption, thou shalt indeed experience a 
physical hell on earth, and drop into a loathsome grave, un- 
wept, unhonored, and unsung." 

Not a badly written apostrophe ; but I venture to say that 
it did not long hold its place in the sermon. 

Eloquence is colloquial. It takes two to make a bargain, a 
quarrel, or a speech. The speaker cannot get on satisfactorily 
without continual responses to his arguments and appeals. 
This is why the figure of " interrogation " is so much more 



THE ACTION OF THE SOUL 499 

natural and frequent in speech than in writing. For interro- 
gation is really an interlocutory process in which half is in- 
audible. The early Christian homily was in many cases an 
actual dialogue between the preacher and his hearers. The 
same was true of the address in the Jewish synagogue. Es- 
pecially when anything displeasing was said, the hearer did not 
hesitate to ask questions and to express dissent. The sermon, 
rising into a higher form than these discourses, should never- 
theless retain the spirit of the dialogue. 

Sometimes the hearer replies with applause, — for example, 
to a political speaker or a popular lecturer. In the congrega- 
tions of Chrysostom and other popular preachers of the prim- 
itive church such applause was a common occurrence. In 
Methodist congregations audible religious responses — not ap- 
plause—were frequently given, in former times, to sustain and 
stimulate the speaker. "The freedom of the Methodist 
usage of public worship," says Dr. Phelps, " which permits the 
hearer to give vent to his own emotions awakened by the 
voice of the preacher, has this to say in its defense : that it is 
grounded in the nature of all eloquence. The reticence of 
Calvinistic assemblies is so far unnatural in that it stifles the 
dramatic nature of oral discourse, and tends to reduce it to a 
monologue." Audible or simply visible responses are expected 
and are received by the true preacher,— a flush or a shadow on 
the face, a look of thoughtfulness, a trembling lip, a glistening 
eye. He is fain to cease speaking unless there be speaking 
faces respondent. It is this feeling that prompts the preacher 
sometimes to turn his back on the congregation, and address 
some brother minister in the pulpit, — an abominable habit, but 
originating in a true instinct of eloquent speech. That is poor 
speaking which is done by the speaker alone. 

You will have apathetic hearers : some disposed to drop 
their eyes or to look carelessly here and there ; some looking 
you straight in the face, but really paying no attention ; some 
more or less antipathetic, making criticisms and filing objec- 



500 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

tions. But there will also be hearers like-minded with yourself, 
attentive, eloquent. Some faces will be as a billet of wood or 
a damp cloud, but others will be sunshine and magnetism. 
You will soon learn where to find these quickening faces in the 
congregation ; and it will be wise to avail yourself of all the 
help they can render. Let them give back, with the added 
force of their own conviction and sympathy, the truth you are 
delivering to them. Especially in moments of heaviness, when 
it seems impossible to feel or speak with any power, lift up 
your heart to God for His inspiration, and for human inspi- 
ration turn toward the eyes through which responsive souls are 
looking. 

Not that the preacher should pass by and ignore the unsym- 
pathetic hearer. It is said that Rubenstein had the music so 
chilled out of him by the sight of indifferent and yawning 
auditors that he formed the habit of keeping his eyes fixed 
on the keyboard of his piano. But you must be able to do 
better than the famous pianist. Gather power to face indiffer- 
ence. By no means turn away from the man who turns away 
from you. Speak to him (not however about his inattentive- 
ness). Use upon him the strength that you get from other 
sources. Win back the averted eyes. Elicit the reluctant re- 
sponse. It might be expedient even to give your whole atten- 
tion for a few moments to the man who is looking at his watch ; 
and while thus silently reproving his impoliteness, find a useful 
hint for yourself in his painful consciousness of duration. And 
should there be disorder in the congregation— either thought- 
less or deliberate disturbance — it is the part of the masterful 
speaker to control it by the gentlest and most considerate 
exercise of authority. Administer no harsh rebuke. Show no 
irritation of feeling. A few moments' pause, or a few respect- 
ful words, will reinstate the reign of order, and restore the most 
ungracious spirits to good behavior. 

We sometimes speak of keeping "in touch " with people, — 
with fellow-workers, for example, in some good cause. The 



THE ACTION OF THE SOUL 501 

phrase, though now somewhat overworked, is peculiarly signifi- 
cant. There is great nicety and discriminative power in the 
sense of touch. All men exert it constantly, and in quite an 
indefinable manner. The wheelman cannot tell you just how 
he maintains his balance on the bicycle ; the organist, just how 
he knows with what force to press the keys ; the penman, just 
how he graduates the pressure of his pen upon the paper. 
They somehow feel their way. Similarly there is a 
delicacy of mental perception. We have the power to feel 
with our minds the mental condition of those with whom we 
associate. Just how we cannot tell ; but it is a faculty which 
we are all the time exercising ; and like the sense of physical 
touch, it is capable of the highest cultivation. You may have 
met with persons who had very little of it. They were con- 
tinually blundering. They knew neither the right thing to say, 
nor the right time to say it. They missed the opportunity of 
influence, and even repelled and offended those whom they 
would have won. Have you not known others who seemed 
to feel the very thoughts and emotions, fleeting and changing 
from moment to moment, of those with whom they were keep- 
ing company? Such persons, if not "mind-readers," are at 
least mind-feelers. They instinctively feel whether those to 
whom they speak believe what is said or reject it, whether the 
right or the wrong thing has been spoken, whether enough or 
too much. They have tact. Now some such fine power of 
mental perception is indispensable to the public speaker. He 
must feel, through some subtle interpretation of facial signs, 
what is the inward, unspoken response of the hearer to his 
appeals. He must have tact, — which means touch. And 
something more. To his nice perceptiveness add the spirit 
of love ; and tact becomes complete mental and emotional 
contact. 

What, then, is oratory? It is animated, whole-hearted talk- 
ing to people ; somewhat louder than in the parlor or the 
street, but in the same tones and with the same emphasis as 



502 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

any conversation in which, interested yourself, you are bent 
on interesting others and carrying your point. 

Do you wish to take a short cut to self-destruction as a 
preacher? You have only to fall into the habit of playing the 
orator. It is peculiarly the danger of young speakers; be 
cause they are most given to an affected, unchildlike manner. 

" The old man clogs our earliest years, 
And simple childhood comes the last." 

Remember the suggestiveness of the name by which the theory 
of preaching is called : homiletes, a companion ; homileo, to 
converse with (used, e.g., in such New Testament passages as 
Luke xxiv. 14, 15 ; Acts xx. 11 ; Acts xxiv. 26). The etymol- 
ogy of the word sermon is also significant: sermo, a talk. 
Your audience, likewise, is not, like that of many speakers, 
simply an audience : it is a congregation (literally a gathered 
flock). And yet young preachers, even when not specially 
lacking in earnestness and ability, are prone to confound rhe- 
torical power with rhetorical display, — two things so different 
as to be mutually exclusive. You may have either, but not 
both : discriminate, and make your choice. 

In conversation we find ourselves every now and then call- 
ing the name of the person with whom we are talking. Why? 
That we may get close to him in mind and feeling. The public 
speaker is not allowed to take this liberty ; but it is well that 
he should sometimes feel like taking it. He should have the 
same spirit, only more elevated and intense, in speaking to his 
friends in the audience, as when a few moments afterward he 
takes them by the hand and calls their names. 

One sign of the better recognition in our day of this true 
method of preaching is the change in architecture by which 
the pulpit has been brought down nearer to the pews. When 
the intervening space shall be still further reduced, when there 
shall no longer be an aisle immediately in front of the pulpit, 



THE ACTION OF THE SOUL 503 

when the amphitheater shall be recognized as the best general 
model for an audience-room,— the preacher will be able still 
more perfectly to put himself into easy and effective speaking 
relations with the people. Bishop Marvin said that it seemed 
to him that he had " wasted sufficient nerve-force in overcom- 
ing the distance between the preacher and the pew to have 
awakened a thousand sinners." 

Bear with me. I must insist yet a little longer on personal, 
direct, and conversational preaching. 

Make it a point to individualize your congregation. In the 
preparation of the sermon think of this man and that. Still 
more, in the act of preaching, direct your words to individuals, 
not to an impersonal mass. " And Philip opened his mouth, 
and beginning from this scripture, preached unto him Jesus " 
(Acts viii. 35). Let the sermon, if written, read, not like an 
essay, but like a letter. Thus it may be said of you, as it was 
not uncommon for President Finney's hearers to say of him : 
" It doesn't seem like preaching ; it seems as if he had taken 
me alone and was conversing with me face to face." 

I was once associated with a magnificently endowed 
preacher. There could hardly be a more delightful converser. 
With the utmost ease and naturalness, he would adapt himself 
to any company : he was positively charming to children, and 
with equal facility held the attention of the most mature and 
thoughtful. There was a graceful grandeur, a beautiful, 
leonine majesty about his whole appearance and bearing that 
I have never seen equaled. In a short speech he seldom 
failed to capture his audience. But when he entered the pul- 
pit, lo, the " orator " ! His pleasantness, his naturalness, his 
talking power all were laid aside ; and the congregation had 
the opportunity of listening to a grand, though somewhat me- 
chanical, declamation. He used to deplore the ineffectiveness 
of his ministry ; but seemed unaware that one cause was this 
persistent transformation of himself into some ideal Bascom 
that had fascinated his youthful fancy. It was this type of 



504 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

pulpit discourse that Spurgeon had in mind when he said, " I 
hate oratory." 

Now it is by no means certain that you are at one with me 
in these convictions. For many young men whom I hear 
preach do not seem to have adopted a conversational basis of 
delivery. You have a lingering notion, it may be, that so 
simple a style would not afford scope for your power to sway 
an audience. Many notable examples might be cited to dispel 
this illusion : two names, not unfamiliar to you, ought to be 
sufficient, — Matthew Simpson, James A. Duncan. Indeed, the 
views here advanced are in substantial agreement with the 
whole consensus of oratorical opinion on this point — at least, 
so far as known to me. One of the most impassioned orators 
of Virginia, who has stood as a master before all manner of 
assemblies, in the quietness and solemnity of the house of God, 
and amid the wildest excitements of forensic and political 
debate, said to me : "I should like to give you my best con- 
ception of eloquence. It is suggestive thought and a conver- 
sational style of speech." Dr. Behrends, in his " Philosophy 
of Preaching," forcibly expresses the opinion that "sound, 
sensible talk, when it is dashed with wholesome passion, will 
break out into the most genuine eloquence and pathos." " See 
especially," says Richard Baxter, in " The Reformed Pastor," 
" that there be no affectation, but that you speak as familiarly 
to them as you would do if you were talking to any of them 
personally. The want of a familiar tone and expression is a 
great fault in most of our deliveries, and that which we should 
be very careful to mend. When a man hath a reading or de- 
claiming tone, like a school-boy saying his lesson or repeating 
an oration, few are moved with anything that he says." 

3. Upon the Object. 

The preacher may be quite awake to his subject and audi- 
ence, and but dimly conscious of his object. The time has 
come ; he must preach. He cannot endure the misery of 
standing before the people nonplussed, or empty-minded, or 



THE ACTION OF THE SOUL 605 

cold-hearted. Accordingly he makes due preparation, gives 
his mind in the pulpit to the subject and the audience, and 
succeeds perhaps in interesting both himself and them. He 
enjoys the occasion, and so do they ; somewhat as an enter- 
taining lecture is enjoyed, or a bright conversation between 
congenial minds. All go away pleased. Has the preacher 
made it his object to please his auditory, like a paid lecturer 
or a play-actor? Not unless he be utterly unworthy of his 
vocation. But neither has he made anything else his object, 
in the proper and full sense of the word. Somewhere in the 
background of consciousness has been a shadowy, half-formed 
purpose to do good, but too feeble to be effectual. He would 
have been surprised if a soul had broken down in penitence at 
the close of the sermon, or had warmly expressed gratitude 
for the truth that had cleared away his doubts and difficulties 
and wrought in him the determination to live a holier life. 

It has been said that speakers may be divided into three 
classes : those you cannot listen to, those you can listen to, and 
those you cannot help listening to. A happy classification, 
yielding good suggestions. Make your congregation hearers. 
Have something to tell, and make them listen, by all gentle- 
ness and suasion and vivacity and earnestness. What can we 
expect to accomplish by tiring or mystifying or disgusting the 
people that have come to hear us? But what then? After 
they have listened and have been pleased, and could not help 
it, what then? What object has shared, as chief claimant, with 
subject and audience, your whole available mental energy in 
the preparation and delivery of the sermon? " Let every one 
of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying." 

Much is said about, subjects of preaching. In ministers' 
meetings they are invariably called for ; and among the people 
texts and subjects are talked of. But with the preacher him- 
self the first question should be, What is my object? Not, 
What am I preaching on ? but, What am I preaching for ? 
The subject is only a means to the object, the end. Do not 



506 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

lose the preacher in the sermonizer, the end in the means. Do 
not be satisfied to escape failure, to deliver a passable or even 
a pleasing sermon ; in other words, to parade the streets for a 
certain length of time, in a genteel uniform, with a well-polished 
musket, instead of making an actual fight, determined on vic- 
tory. " When you preach," said a child to her father, " you 
seem to be preaching about something." That was good : the 
preacher had a theme. But it would have been still better 
could she have said, " You seem to be preaching for some- 
thing." 

The hearers of Dr. Nathaniel J. Burton would doubtless 
have said that he uniformly preached " about something," and 
that he did it with remarkable freshness and beauty of thought. 
But he himself has said : " It has been the sin of my life that 
I have not always taken aim. I have been a lover of subjects. 
If I had loved men more and loved subjects only as God's 
instruments of good to men, it would have been better, and I 
should have more to show for all my labor under the sun." 
Many men in the midst of their ministry are making the same 
mistake, with only a half-consciousness of it. 

Devotion to your object will influence the choice of sub- 
jects. You will endeavor to select not simply such as interest 
the audience or yourself, but such as are adapted to the spe- 
cific purpose of each particular sermon. The text of Wesley's 
sermon to a cultivated audience on a certain occasion was the 
words, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye es- 
cape the damnation of hell? " And when one of his hearers 
said, " Sir, such a sermon would have been suitable in Billings- 
gate; but it was highly improper here," the serene reply was, 
" If I had been in Billingsgate, my text should have been, 
' Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world!' " Can you imagine an apostolic man saying to him- 
self, " I think, somehow, I could make a sermon on that text ; 
I think it would be easy and agreeable to preach on that sub- 
ject " ? In the midst of a revival you know just what you 



THE ACTION OF THE SOUL 507 

intend to accomplish by every sermon and every exhortation : 
why should there be less definiteness of aim on ordinary oc- 
casions? 

A lawyer at the bar often fails to gain his case, but he never 
fails through not knowing what the case is that he is trying to 
gain. He is bent on securing one thing only, the "verdict." 
A physician often administers the wrong medicine, but he 
knows at least what he wishes his medicine to accomplish. So 
with the general and the movements he directs on the battle- 
field : should he be defeated, it will not be because of ordering 
men he knows not where, to do he knows not what. Shall 
we, unto whom are intrusted the priceless treasure of the 
Gospel of Christ and the cause of human salvation, do the 
chief part of our work aimlessly, and expect God to give suc- 
cess? It is not His law. The apostle Paul wrote many things 
in his epistles, some of them hard to understand, and with many 
parenthetical passages; but read any of his writings or ad- 
dresses, and say whether you can imagine him composing for 
the sake of composing, or speaking merely in order to occupy 
an appointed hour. " I therefore so run, as not uncertainly ; 
so fight I, as not beating the air." The same is true of any 
thoroughly earnest preacher, both in his Christian life as a 
whole, and in that small but typical part of it which is spent in 
the pulpit. He will be intent upon accomplishing the end of 
his preaching. Said Rowland Hill : " They say I do not stick 
to my subject; but, thank God, I always stick to my object, 
which is the winning of your souls and bringing you to the 
Cross of Jesus Christ." 

And now just a word concerning the speaker's exertion of 
will-power upon an audience with reference to his object. 
I hardly know what to think of "thought-transference." 
Whether there be minds that can will their ideas into certain 
other minds, independently of the ordinary means of commu- 
nication, let scientific observation decide. But the power of a 
single will, when all astir with energy, to influence others through 



508 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

the ordinary means of communication is an unquestionable 
fact. Just as intellect may stimulate intellect, or sensibility 
enkindle sensibility, or conscience awaken conscience, so may 
will move will. Give the same arguments and appeals, with 
the same intellectual and emotional capacity, to two men, one 
of whom is feeble and the other strong and unyielding in will- 
power. Then let these two men come before any person or 
assemblage of persons, for the purpose of pressing them to 
some practical decision. Which of the two is the more likely 
to succeed? 

It is a power, like all others, that may be abused. Revi- 
valists sometimes abuse it. They overbear the wills of the 
more easily influenced, and force them to acts of self-commit- 
tal for which they are unprepared. Nevertheless we may all 
learn a useful lesson from such excesses. Use rightly what 
some overuse. In preaching bring all your will-power to 
bear steadily and expectantly upon the people. Say within 
yourself, " You shall, you shall receive this message of God." 
Such determination will deliver itself as a subtle and intense 
human influence upon the souls before you. Men are con- 
quered by love and will. 

Read Part I. of Mcllvaine's " Elocution." 



LECTURE XXXI 

EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING— IN THE ACT 

THE question, What is extemporaneous preaching? is more 
easily asked than answered. Undoubtedly much that 
goes by that name is simply so called. In the preface to his 
volume of "Sermons" Bishop Marvin says: "They were 
properly extemporaneous, only the analysis having been made 
beforehand, and that without the use of the pen ; for I have 
never made even the briefest notes for twenty-five years past, 
except in a very few instances, when accuracy of quotation 
was necessary. But while it is strictly true that these sermons 
have been preached, they do not appear in the book with 
verbal precision. Some of them have been used frequently in 
the course of several years, but never repeated word for word ; 
yet I suppose those who have heard them will see that the 
substance of them is preserved, and, to a considerable extent, 
the phraseology as well." Now the sermon that is preached 
from " only an analysis made beforehand " might be called 
" properly extemporaneous " on its first delivery. But when 
this production has come to be delivered over and over, almost 
the same in subject-matter and phraseology, the best that can 
be said of these repetitions is that they are ////properly ex- 
temporaneous. In them the memoriter element is overwhelm- 
ingly preponderant. 

What, then, is extemporaneous speaking? In the full sense 
of the word, it is equivalent to impromptu speaking,— that, 
509 



510 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

namely, in which every thought and every expression is in- 
vented on the occasion. What is premeditated speaking? 
In the full sense of the word, that in which every thought and 
every expression has been prepared beforehand. Between 
these extremes we find, in actual preaching, the fusion, in 
every conceivable proportion, of the two elements of precom- 
posed and offhand speech ; the problem being to combine the 
strength, perspicuity, and truthfulness of the one with the fire 
and freedom of the other. 

The usual statement of the extemporaneous speaker is that 
he prepares the thoughts, but not the language, — knows what 
he shall say, but not how he shall say it. Has this man, then, 
learned to think without the aid of words? or to change his 
language without changing the thought of which it is the em- 
bodiment? The real meaning must be either that he knows 
the most that he is going to say, but not all (the main matters, 
not the minutiae), or that he has thought out everything in 
language, but holds himself at liberty to present it more or less 
differently to his audience. In the first case there is more of 
the extemporaneous element in his discourse than he claims ; 
in the second case there is less. In neither case can he be said 
to know beforehand all that he is going to say. 

Perhaps a better statement would be that the typical ex- 
temporaneous speaking is that in which the plan of discourse 
is thought out and fairly developed beforehand, but, in the act 
of delivery, is further developed, and freely modified, reno- 
vated, or departed from. 

The extemporary method makes a higher demand than any 
of the other methods on the preacher's powers, both physical 
and mental, — steadily requiring that body and mind be kept 
always in the best possible condition ; and, as might be ex- 
pected, the results are correspondingly great. It utilizes the 
whole personality of the speaker as no other method can. " I 
sometimes think," says Dr. James W. Alexander, " I never 
acted out my inner man in a sermon. The nearest approach 



EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING— IN THE ACT 511 

has been extempore." But it would be useless to occupy your 
time with arguments in favor of this mode of preaching. Its 
preeminence is universally conceded ; and the question need 
not be reopened. Dr. Robert South's conviction that " the 
extemporizing faculty is never more out of its element than in 
the pulpit " would not so much as stir a ripple on the surface 
of homiletic thought in the present day. 

Still it by no means follows that this is the best method in 
every case, — that on no other method is preaching that de- 
serves the name possible. Democracy is the ideal form of 
government, but not the most suitable for all peoples. In like 
manner, the highest form of his art is not possible to every 
man. But it is unquestionably incumbent on every preacher 
to test the matter thoroughly, and make sure that the extem- 
poraneous method is not the best for him, before adopting 
any other. If he be sufficiently in earnest to do this, the re- 
sult will generally be a decision in its favor. 

Neither have I anything additional to say on the subject of 
preparation for the pulpit. I suppose the preacher, having 
already prepared himself in some way for extemporaneous 
speech, to be standing before the congregation. What now? 
Can any instruction or hints be given that may prove service- 
able in the singular and trying position into which he is come? 
I would venture to offer him these suggestions : 

i . Be content with your present speaking self, however it may 
limp and stumble. No time now to attempt the extraordinary, 
in thought or expression. No time to be fastidious. No time 
for distrust of spontaneous ideas and words. The battle is 
joined : no polishing or testing of weapons now, save in actual 
conflict. You are not at leisure ; not in the study. There sit 
the expectant congregation ; and here are you standing before 
them, you, such as God made you and such as you have helped 
to make yourself ; and in your already attained and habitual 
manner of speech must you now be willing to talk to the 
people. Dare, then, to be your simple self. 



512 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

In other words, we are not to check, but, on the contrary, 
to encourage spontaneity. Without it there is no fluency and 
no eloquence. Some preachers remind us of the characteriza- 
tion of Caesar Augustus in Roman history : " With him every 
action was the result of premeditation ; nothing was spontane- 
ous ; he even wrote down what he intended saying to his wife ; 
and his ideal of life appeared to be to avoid making a mis- 
take." A strangely inadequate and delusive ideal for any 
man ; but for an extemporaneous speaker, fatal. Infinitely 
better is that of Augustine : Love, and do what you will. 

(i) As to voice. A speaker who is feeling his way into a 
subject, with more or less agitation, will not utter his words 
with the full, firm, and assured enunciation of the declaimer. 
Let him not imagine that it would be better to do so. The 
modest and subdued tones, the deliberation (not slowness) and 
momentary hesitation, which express his present mental action 
and emotional state, are not only the best he is now capable 
of, but, it may be, absolutely the best. Are they not all the 
more truly oratorical for not suggesting the prepared oration? 
Their lack of loud promise and bold assertion, their simple, 
natural modesty, will win the hearer's favorable attention. He 
will listen well through such an introduction, even though the 
sense of hearing should be somewhat strained. So true is this 
that some memoriter speakers practise a little voluntary hesi- 
tation, or even a sort of half-stammer, as an artifice, in the be- 
ginning of a speech. 

(2) As to language. Of course you might improve your 
sentences — at least from a literary point of view — if more time 
were available. But that is out of the question. What is your 
spontaneous diction, when interested in a subject of conversa- 
tion with a congenial friend? Do not seek to transcend it 
now. Had you lived more faithfully, it would have been 
better ; if you do so in the future, it will improve ; but you 
must use it now unhesitatingly, such as it is. Indeed, here 
too is an advantage: your conversational language will be 



EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING-IN THE ACT 513 

more eloquent — that is to say, the better for its purpose— than 
the most perfect literary style that your pen could command. 

Never lose sight of the difference between the study and 
the pulpit, between writing and speaking. The poet Whittier 
said : " I hope that the labor spent on my poems is not ap- 
parent. If it were, I doubt if anybody would or could read 
them." But he was mistaken. It does not hinder our enjoy- 
ment of a poem to know that it was written and rewritten 
over and over, that the author's judgment and taste were 
almost impossible to satisfy, that hours of intense imaginative 
thought were spent in " running down the sole word that would 
exactly serve." But such a spirit carried into extemporaneous 
speech would be disastrous. We are told that Whittier never 
spoke in the " meeting " which he so regularly attended ; and 
it is not surprising. The extemporaneous speaker, when face 
to face with his audience, must lay aside the exacting habits 
of verbal accuracy which belong to the study. 

(3) As to knowledge and thought. Leave novelty and pro- 
fundity to those who are capable of them, or suppose them- 
selves to be. Tell what you know. Give such ideas as you 
have, not such as you have a hint of. The stock will be poor 
enough, no doubt, both in quantity and in quality ; but the 
effort to deliver extempore to others what is not familiarly 
your own will but check the fluency and steal away the fire 
of your utterances. 

2. Still there must be the exercise of discrimination between 
relevant and irrelevant thoughts. The incompetent or the im- 
perfectly prepared speaker is disposed to welcome almost any 
idea whatever that is suggested by his theme. Now, so in- 
stinctively and irrepressibly does the mind act, under the law 
of association, that it is never really idle. The speaker must 
be nearly paralyzed with embarrassment if the ideas of any 
intelligible sentence he may get hold of do not bring up some 
associated idea. Hence interminable talks. Hence it is no 
remarkable feat to speak, after a fashion, without the least 



514 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

premeditation, on any tolerably familiar theme. But the ora- 
tor has a definite aim. He must persuade people — are you 
tired of hearing it? — to some act or course of action. And 
for this a mere casual association of ideas interlinking them- 
selves in all directions is not the fit instrument. There must 
be logical sequence and convergence of thought. Certain 
lines of approach to the hearer's motives must be chosen ; and 
whatever is unsuitable to movement in this direction — what- 
ever is not needed as explanation, argument, illustration, ap- 
plication, by the theme under discussion— must be excluded. 

3. But irrelevancy is better than silence. Have you lost your 
way in the discourse, forgotten your plan, — instead of " what 
comes next," nothing but darkness ahead? Take advantage 
of the thoughts that do arise. Repeat the sentence last uttered, 
if need be, and follow its suggestions. In all probability you 
will soon recover the straight path, if not just where you left 
it, at a somewhat more advanced point. 

So much for emergencies ; the occurrence of which, how- 
ever, faithful preparation and general right-mindedness will 
render less and less frequent. 

4. Will to utter the thoughts, and let the ivords come of them- 
selves. Is there doubt of your ability to do this? Verily it 
is a marvelous achievement,— just as all thought is, and all 
speech ; but one which everybody accomplishes every day, 
without the least suspicion that he is doing some great thing. 
In ordinary conversation do you deliberately pick and choose 
words, and fix your mind directly on them ? Do they not just 
appear, under some impulse of the rational will, and crystallize 
into sentences, — declarative, interrogative, and others, — sub- 
ject, predicate, modifiers, connectives, phrases, clauses, ante- 
cedents, relatives all taking their proper places with electric 
swiftness and force? 

This mental action is analogous to a large class of physical 
motions. The child must slowly and toilsomely learn to walk, 
to talk, to read, to write,— consciously directing each move- 



EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING-IN THE ACT 515 

ment of the limbs, the lips, the fingers, the eyes. The man 
wills to join a friend on the opposite side of the street, — some- 
what as a fish wishes to be elsewhere in the pool,— and forth- 
with ten thousand coordinated nerve-fibers and muscle-fibers, 
of whose very existence probably he knows nothing, are set 
astir, and he is grasping the hand of his friend. I am writing 
on a paper pad. Does this mean that I am giving attention 
to each of the numberless changes of direction taken by my 
pencil? It means very little more than that I bid my fingers 
write, and am obeyed. I lay down the pencil and talk to a 
visitor. By consciously and voluntarily using lips, tongue, and 
larynx in certain ways? Though it was so once, and would 
be so now if I were trying to pronounce the words of a difficult 
and unfamiliar language, yet it is not so now in the case of 
my native tongue. I choose to utter a sentence, and it is done. 

Similar is the action of the mind in verbal invention. When 
a language has once been learned, and by daily and hourly 
use has grown thoroughly familiar, — a part of one's mental life, 
— it is ready to perform its function, with extremely little con- 
scious stimulus and direction. And herein lies the possibility 
of powerful impromptu speech : the language, being spontane- 
ous, claims almost none of the psychical energy. To spend 
this energy on language is to throw it away. Worse than that, 
such a misdirection of energy will interfere positively with the 
right action of the mind, and thus defeat its own object ; some- 
what as a pedestrian is sure to walk awkwardly and crookedly 
by looking at his feet instead of keeping his eyes fixed on the 
place to which he is going. 

If the pertinent expression should not come of itself, utilize 
the best that does offer. If none that seems at all appropriate 
should be at command, then indeed you may have to divide 
your energy and weaken your delivery in order to go word- 
hunting. But I must repeat, the chosen and uniform attitude 
of the extemporaneous speaker is one that leaves room for 
spontaneity in the exercise of the gift of words. He thinks 



516 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

his subject, and persistently wills its utterance rather than the 
manner of its utterance. 

5. Let your soul be open and impressible to the presence of the 
congregation. Can any one speak with as much inventiveness 
and vivacity to an uninterested as to an interested audience? 
Possibly ; for a certain class of speakers seem equally able to 
talk on, whether listened to or not. But no one with aught of 
the orator's spirit can. If he think so, he mistakes, and is on 
the way to deprive himself of an indispensable source of power. 
The waiting and wishing faces before him furnish a stimulus 
to thought, and a condition for flashes of insight and for fiery 
appeal, that nothing can substitute. 

I knew a very young preacher who, after practising extem- 
poraneous speaking in private till he had acquired some little 
facility in it, said to himself: "Now if I can ever reach the 
point where I can speak as well before a congregation as 
alone, I shall be satisfied." It was like much of the wisdom 
of honest inexperience, — ignorance and error. He soon found 
that in talking to people, as contradistinguished from meditat- 
ing aloud or declaiming, he was not only a giver, but a con- 
stant receiver. With all his feebleness and blundering, in the 
hour and act of real speech there would come to him, as it 
were, another human self ; and his words, like a conversation, 
were the utterance of both. 

Cardinal Newman said that in preaching he never saw his 
congregation. It is not to be wondered at. A logical and 
deeply religious thinker, a sweet-voiced, meditative reader, he 
was not, in any proper sense of the word, a speaker. I con- 
fess, however, to have been somewhat surprised to find that 
M. Bautain, in his " Art of Extempore Speaking," advises the 
speaker against looking at individuals as such, or even into the 
faces of the congregation as a congregation. " For the greatest 
possible avoidance of distractions," he says, " I will recom- 
mend a thing which I have always found successful,— that is, 
not to contemplate the individuals who compose the audience, 






EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING-IN THE ACT 5i7 

and thus not to establish a special understanding with any of 
them. . . , As for myself, I carefully avoid all ocular contact 
with no matter whom, and I restrict myself to a contemplation 
of the audience as a whole,— keeping my looks above the level 
of the heads. Thus I see all, and distinguish nobody, so that 
the entire attention of my mind remains fastened upon my plan 
and my ideas." Now this, it seems to me, would be excellent 
advice for the speaker if he were — not a speaker. The thinker 
in his study, preparing to preach, may well wish to see nobody ; 
but it is because he is ready as yet to speak to nobody. The 
thinker transformed into the preacher in the pulpit should 
look at people just as the converser does,— not "above 
the level of the heads," but into their eyes. And not simply 
for what he thus gives ; but also for what he gets, that he may 
have the more to give withal. It is not desirable, as we have 
already learned, that " the entire attention of his mind should 
remain fastened upon his plan and his ideas." A goodly por- 
tion of it should be given to his audience. 

The experience of an English preacher who, after spending 
fourteen years as a sermon-reader, adopted the extemporane- 
ous method is much more consonant with my own than is 
that of M. Bautain : 

" November 16. — I begin to feel the good effect of attend- 
ing to what is passing in the minds of the congregation. The 
speaker is aroused by seeing or feeling that the minds of his 
hearers are in contact with his own mind. This is a stimulus 
to thought and expression of which I knew nothing when I 
read my sermons. . . . 

" July 5. — To look the congregation in the face is often both 
a stimulus to the speaker and a guide to him in the treatment 
of his subject. It tells him whether he is understood, and 
whether he should drop, or continue to dwell a little longer 
on, what he is speaking about. . . . 

" November 8. — I felt something to-day of the hearts and 
minds of the people I was addressing. I was conscious that 



518 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

their thought and feeling were aroused. I seemed to myself 
to be giving expression to their thought and feeling. This 
rapport between the speaker and his hearers is necessary. 
Their thoughts and feelings are partly to be read in their faces 
and partly to be divined. To keep one's self in sympathy in this 
way with one's hearers is utterly to repudiate the pestilential 
idea of oratorical display. It is the substitution of the thought 
of one's audience for the thought of one's self " (Zincke's 
" Duty and Discipline of Extemporary Preaching "). 

These seem to me to be words of gold to whoever would 
learn the art of public speech. 

Have in mind, then, not only people, but persons, in the 
preparation of the sermon ; and hold them very closely in 
mind and sympathy, through the eyes, in its delivery. 

6. We have also learned that the speaker's object lays claim 
to still another share of his attention. So I will venture to say 
further, Press right on, without precipitance and without palter- 
ing or self-gratulation, toward your object. " Take another! " 
was the reply of Napier to an elated young officer who insisted 
on informing him, in the midst of a battle, that a standard had 
been taken. A speech, like a battle, is an action. The preacher 
who pauses in the midst of his sermon for compliments or con- 
gratulations, either from himself or from others, is missing his 
opportunity. He must be looking ahead. He must "take 
another" standard, and still another; he must press forward 
steadily and self-forgetfully to the final onset and victory. 

" Look up, not down ; 
Look forward, not back ; 
Look out, not in ; 
And lend a hand." 

The effect of this purposeful energy upon speech is twofold. 

First, it prompts the rejection of irrelevant ideas. Needless 
exposition and illustration, speculative fancies, and such like 
impertinences will entice the earnest and determined preacher 



EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING-IN THE ACT 519 

in vain. So, likewise, will humorous or witty ideas, except 
under certain restrictions. The preacher, for example, who is 
always ready to follow a solemn and impressive truth with some 
trivial or diverting remark is not bent on accomplishing the 
legitimate object of the sermon. 

Coleridge, in his "Table Talk," though he admits that 
" reading " is not " preaching in the proper sense of the word," 
says that as for himself he prefers it : " For I never yet heard 
more than one preacher without book who did not forget his 
argument in ten minutes' time, and fall into vague and un- 
profitable declamation, and generally very coarse declamation, 
too. These preachers never progress ; they eddy round and 
round. Sterility of mind follows their ministry." Now I am 
sure that extemporaneous preaching has greatly increased in 
extent and improved in quality since Coleridge's day ; but it 
cannot be said that the "unprofitable declamation" and ir- 
relevancy of which he complained have become antiquated. 
Concerning some of us, alas! it must still be said, " They eddy 
round and round. Sterility of mind follows their ministry." 
And one great reason is the lack of earnestness. Heart and 
will have not been set on the attainment of our end. Will 
chooses the shortest distance between the starting-point and 
the goal : it is fancy, indifference, weakness that " eddy round 
and round." 

Secondly, this spirit of determination will rouse the powers 
of thought and sensibility, and avail itself of their best resources 
of speech. Purpose is inventive ; the will innervates the in- 
tellect ; where there is a will there is a way. " If therefore 
thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." If 
you have set your heart on persuading a dear friend to some 
line of action,— if this be the paramount and consuming pur- 
pose,— your mind will not long remain barren of arguments 
and appeals. A noble-minded woman said : " I never could 
sing a note till I had to put my hand on the cradle and rock 
my own babes." We are told that deaf-mutes have been 



520 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

known to speak under pressure of painful anxiety for the 
safety of those whom they love. The strong and sudden effort 
to call some loved one out of danger, or to summon others to 
his help, broke the spell of lifelong silence and lent a momen- 
tary voice to the lips of the dumb. Do you mean your preach- 
ing? do you believe in God? do you believe in the infinite evil 
and the infinite peril of sin, in the divine mercy, in the Gos- 
pel as the sole authoritative and gracious revelation of God's 
fatherly love and redeeming power, in the limitless possibilities 
of sonship to God and Christlikeness of character? Do you 
really love men? Do you know something of what Paul must 
have meant, Apostle to the Gentiles though he was, in that 
great passionate word which we hardly dare interpret : "I could 
wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my breth- 
ren's sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh"? Then your 
lips will be unsealed, and words of power will dwell upon them, 
such as only this pressing forward to the supreme object of 
Christian preaching can call forth. 

7. There is great effectiveness in reserved force. Whatever 
Wesley would have taught the Billingsgate people, he learned 
a lesson on one occasion from them. Passing near the market, 
accompanied by a friend, and seeing two viragoes in a furious 
quarrel, he was disposed to stop and listen. " Pray, sir, let us 
go ; I cannot stand it," said his friend. " Stay, Sammy," was 
the reply; "stay, and let us learn how to preach." In like 
manner, we are constantly sent by elocutionists to angry per- 
sons, to little children, to beggars, in whom untaught nature is 
supposed to hold perfect sway, that we may learn the art of 
eloquence. The advice is good, but needs to be supplemented. 
The whine of the beggar is sometimes overdone ; the pleadings 
of the child are often wearisome rather than winsome, and his 
cry not infrequently tends to scatter his audience ; the wild 
vociferation and profuse gestures of the termagant are more 
likely to call forth the " Pray, let us go," than the " Stay and 
learn." The oratorical fault in these cases is lack of self-con- 



EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHlNG-IN THE ACT 621 

trol; and one way in which it defeats the object in view is 
through preventing all accumulation of force, all reserved 
power. The full-blown passion is flung at your feet — and is 
despised. Self-restraint would have intensified it, and through 
concealment so wrought upon your imagination as to have 
made it a subtle, penetrating contagion instead of a harmless 
explosion. Before restrained passion we feel ourselves to be 
in the presence of an unknown and incalculable force. So 
repression is often the most powerful expression. No one 
knew this better than the man who was nevertheless willing to 
learn from two irate fishwomen ; hence his advice to preachers, 
never to scream. The two advices must be put side by side : 
they scream in Billingsgate. 

We are not touched with pity toward the man in bereave- 
ment who makes no lamentation for the very good reason that 
he feels no poignant grief. We do pity one who tells it all, 
in cries and tears and sorrowful words, with no effort at self- 
restraint. But look on the pale face and quivering frame of 
the broken-hearted sufferer who nevertheless schools his lips 
to calmness of speech ; and your heart is crushed with sym- 
pathetic sorrow. When the soul of Israel's great king was 
overwhelmed with agony by the terrible fate of Absalom, he 
cried aloud, as the manner of his nation was ; but his grief was 
the more pathetic because he would fain hide it from the peo- 
ple, and " went up to the chamber over the gate," and covered 
his face, while the wail of anguish broke from his lips. " And 
the people got them by stealth that day into the city, as people 
being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle." 

Violent alternations of feeling are to the speaker a waste of 
power which self-control would have used and kept. A flood 
of loud and excited words is likely to lower the tone and in- 
tensity of emotion ; self-control heightens it. 

The historian of " Our Own Times," after assigning to the 
Quaker statesman, John Bright, a foremost place among the 
orators of England, mentions " his superb self-restraint " as the 



522 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

peculiarity of his style that would first strike the listener's at- 
tention. " The orator at his most powerful passages appeared 
as if he were rather keeping in his strength than taxing it with 
effort. His voice was for the most part calm and measured ; 
he hardly ever indulged in much gesticulation. He never, 
under the pressure of whatever emotion, shouted or stormed. 
The fire of his eloquence was a white heat, intense, consuming, 
but never sparkling or sputtering." 

Of Frederick Robertson's preaching we are told : " So en- 
tirely was his heart in his words that he lost sight of everything 
but his subject. His self-consciousness vanished. But though 
he was carried away by his subject, he was sufficiently lord 
over his own excitement to prevent any loud or unseemly dem- 
onstration of it. He had the eloquence of the man who at the 
very point of being mastered masters himself — apparently cool 
while he is at white heat— so as to make the audience glow 
with the fire and at the same time respect the self-possessed 
power of the orator, — the man being felt as greater than the 
man's feelings." 

Of Austin Phelps, who was no less winning and masterful 
in the pulpit than in the lecture-room, an appreciative critic 
has said : " He seemed to be eaten up by his theme. . . . Yet 
his self-possession was perfect. Who ever heard him declaim, 
or denounce, or do a noisy thing in the pulpit? . . . The fire 
burned through, that was all. One felt his emotion more 
because of what he so evidently restrained than because 
of what he expressed. It was feeling in leash that sprang 
out from the sensitive face, the modulated accent, the quiver- 
ing nerve." 

With such masters one may well "stay a moment" and 
" learn how to preach." 

8. Know taken to quit. The extemporaneous speaker is 
under peculiar temptation to prolixity. The sermon-reader or 
reciter knows before he begins what time the delivery of the 
address will require ; but not so with " preaching in the true 



EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING— IN THE ACT 523 

sense of the word." Here the preacher does not know before- 
hand whereunto the discourse will grow : and through fear at 
the outset lest he should not have enough to say (especially if 
he be but half prepared), and fear toward the close lest he 
should not have made his points perfectly clear ; through the 
mere natural enjoyment of free speech, and the unconscious- 
ness of duration with which it is accompanied; through di- 
gressions, needless repetitions, verbiage ; through feeble, diluted 
conclusions,— there occurs the tedious harangue instead of the 
strong and effective sermon. 

Why feel under necessity, in the act of preaching, to use 
everything that we have prepared? Just as, on the one hand, 
we stand ready to introduce unpremeditated thought, so, on 
the other, let us not hesitate to omit this or that, as occasion 
may seem to require. The omitted idea will not be wasted. 
Some opportunity for utilizing it will soon appear ; perhaps the 
same evening, perhaps the next Sunday, perhaps at the next 
prayer-meeting. But even if it should be certain to pass en- 
tirely out of mind and never return, to use it now, no matter 
whether it promise to hinder or to advance our purpose, would 
be poor economy. A wise parent will not force his children 
to eat unnecessary food for the sake of avoiding waste. 

No invariable time limit can be fixed. For one reason, be- 
cause, as a matter of fact, time is measured psychologically 
rather than physically. All hours are of the same length to 
the clock, but not to the mind. Said a minister who had been 
told that he had preached just fifteen minutes, " I am glad of 
it ; I don't like to be tedious." " Ah, but you were tedious," 
was the blunt reply. 

I do not know a better general rule on this subject than the 
one already given, — that the sermon should last from thirty to 
forty minutes, with a strong preference for the shorter time. 
Learn, then, to condense ; learn the selective processes ; do 
not be so unwise as to weary those whom you would edify. 
Not that you should adopt what would seem to be the ideal 



524 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

of some: "Twenty minutes in length, and no depth at all." 
But know when to quit. 

9. Remember whom you are speaking for, atid abandon your- 
self to Him. Extemporaneous speaking is usually preceded 
by some mental suffering. This suffering, indeed, is of all de- 
grees of intensity, from the mere uneasiness of intellectual and 
moral tension to feelings of actual distress. It is related of 
John Angell James that, when asked how he intended to speak 
at a great missionary meeting which he had been appointed to 
address, he answered : " The difference is just this : if I speak 
extempore, I shall be miserable till it is over; whereas if I 
read, I shall be miserable afterward." There could hardly be 
a stronger commendation of extemporary speech as compared 
with reading. Cherish the comfortable feeling that you have 
the sermon in your pocket, and the preaching power, you may 
be quite sure, will not be forthcoming with the manuscript. 
Far better the cry of Moses, "Who am I?" answered by 
the divine assurance, "I will be with thee" (Ex. iii. 11, 12). 
It is well to feel the burden. It is well also to get rid of it ; 
but not simply when the preaching is over. As you stand up 
to preach, cast your burden of anxiety on the Lord, and He 
will sustain you. 

If speaking for your own reputation, you cannot do this. 
If speaking to please others, you may look to them for strength. 
But if you are speaking for God, expect to speak from Him. 
If you can say, " Even as we have been approved of God to 
be intrusted with the Gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, 
but God, who proveth our hearts," the shackles of doubt and 
fear will fall away, and you shall have a peace and power that 
pass all understanding. Is it too much to say that you are 
consciously an organ of the divine voice? 

Think of a man with such a spirit troubling himself about 
the critics, serious or flippant, competent or incompetent. He 
will be too busy trying to do them good. 

And prayer is available. Paul claimed it from the church, 



EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING— IN THE ACT 525 

notwithstanding his apostolic gifts and revelations, in order 
that utterance might be given him, that he might open his 
mouth boldly and declare the mystery of the Gospel. May 
we not claim it? But whether the church help together in 
their prayers or not, we may always lift up our own hearts to 
God, with the assurance that in our infirmities and necessity 
the power of Christ shall rest upon us. 

I have spoken more than once of fellow-feeling with the 
people ; but still more needful is communion with God. I will 
not say, He is near you. That word is inadequate. He is with 
you and in you, — the Eternal Reason from whom your light 
of reason, the "candle of the Lord," is kindled,— the Infinite 
Mind whose child you are, — the Lord of the soul, who has 
chosen and ordained you, at the foot of His Cross and with 
the baptism wherewith He was baptized, to go forth and 
preach His evangel. His thoughts are in your mind ; His 
Word may abide always in your heart ; between Him and your 
deepest self there is nothing. Hush the voices of the flesh and 
of the world, that you may hear His Word and give it expres- 
sion through your lips. 

What a host of witnesses could testify to the help that has 
come to them from the conscious presence of Christ, through 
prayer, in the ministration of the Gospel. Let one of the 
worthiest and mightiest speak for all : " Often and often," says 
Spurgeon to his " Students," " when I have felt hampered both 
in thought and expression, my secret groaning of heart has 
brought me relief, and I have enjoyed more than usual liberty." 



CONCLUDING LECTURE 

THE TONGUE OF FIRE 

AND now the time has come for the parting word. We 
_ have had much converse together. Concerning the min- 
istration of preaching we have learned something of its human, 
personal element, and something of its contents and its forms. 
The preacher himself and the truth as preached have been 
our subjects of study. But something more. All the while 
have we been reminded that in neither of these things is the 
real source of effective preaching. Greater than the preacher 
is the man ; but mightier than either the man or the message 
is the Infinite Presence and Power. The spoken word is transi- 
tory and inert, unless there be in it the voice of the Eternal 
Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us, and who laid 
aside the flesh that He might dwell in us even unto the end 
of the world. To preach Christ is not merely to speak of 
Him, but to speak as a prophet from Him. And I know 
nothing better for the concluding thought in our course of 
study than this supreme truth of the Christian ministry. 

Is it too much to assert that, even in such preaching as we 
can do, the Lord of heaven and earth is veritably present with 
us and putting forth His saving power? At least it is not 
contrary to what we know in general of the works and ways 
of God. He is not outside but in His creation ; and in it His 
power is ever going forth. In every event of the natural world 
526 



THE TONGUE OF FIRE 527 

the Scriptures make visible the Creator's hand. " I do set My 
bow in the cloud " — "Your heavenly Father feedeth them "— 
" In Him we live, and move, and have our being." Secondary 
causes are unnoticed ; but that which is clearly seen is the one 
real Cause and Ground of all motion and of all existence, the 
Eternal Spirit. 

Philosophy bears the same testimony, It will listen to no 
clock-maker theory of the universe. It apprehends the omni- 
present and ever-active Power by whom all things exist, — the 
immanent God. What is force? Our only possible concep- 
tion of it is will. The forces of nature are the manifold ex- 
pression of one Force, absolute, causative, everywhere present, 
the Creative Will. Every spire of grass that rises up in its 
place, every particle of earth and air on which it feeds, every 
dewdrop that gathers on its surface, bears witness, " Here are 
the handiwork and the presence of God." Nature is one per- 
petual miracle, no smallest part of which is self-wrought. 

Now shall this truth appear any the less a truth in human 
life? " Your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not of 
much more value than they? " As children of God we inherit 
His providence. He appoints our time and place in the world. 
He knows the way we take. He defends us from evil and 
gives us our daily bread. 

Much more may we expect the power of God to be felt in 
our spiritual life. As it is more manifest in the plant than in 
the stone, and in man than in the beast, so its highest mani- 
festation is in that which is highest and best in our nature, in 
the free spirit made in the Creator's image. If God who 
created cares for us at all, surely He will not fail to help us in 
the effort to do His will. If we may be co-workers with Him 
anywhere, we shall not be left to ourselves in the work of sal- 
vation. Is not this the very Gospel which we have received 
and which we preach, — God with us and in us, as our Father, 
our Saviour, our Helper? " I dwell in the high and holy 
place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit " — 



528 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

"Christ Hveth in me" — "But ye were washed, but ye were 
sanctified, but ye were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and in the Spirit of our God." Indeed, what would 
prayer be to an absent or an unknown Deity? 

What, then, are the Christian preacher's special faith and 
claim? Nothing strange or unbelievable to any one who be- 
lieves in the living God ; but, on the contrary, a faith supported 
by all we know of that little part of His ways which has been 
shown in this world. It is,— that the preacher is divinely 
called to his work ; that he lives in personal communion with 
the Holy Spirit ; that, so far as he has become a true preacher, 
the substance of his doctrine is the very Word of God ; and 
that — not in name nor in figure nor in some mystical and un- 
practical sense, but as a simple and sublime fact — he may ex- 
pect the Holy Spirit to be present in the delivery of that Word, 
and to make it savingly effective. 

Beyond the shadow of a doubt, it was this that sustained the 
hearts of prophets and apostles. This was to them the truest 
of all knowledge, deep as their deepest life. Without it they 
would have been dumb. It was the prophet's overmastering 
consciousness that he was not alone, that Jehovah was speak- 
ing through him, — it was this that strangely warmed his heart, 
that unsealed his lips, that made his forehead "as an adamant 
harder than flint" against all enemies and opposers. "The 
hand of the Lord was upon me" — "The Lord showed me, 
and behold "— " The word of the Lord came to me "— " Thus 
saith the Lord," — this was his authority, his confidence, his 
strength. 

Shall we take one of the minor prophets as an example? It 
was a turbulent and iniquitous time in which Micah, the Mo- 
rasthite, a peasant prophet, arose and said : 

"They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with in- 
iquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests 
thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for 
money : yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the 



THE TONGUE OF FIRE 529 

Lord in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us. There- 
fore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusa- 
lem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the 
high places of a forest. But in the latter days it shall come 
to pass, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be estab- 
lished in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted 
above the hills; and peoples shall flow unto it" (Micah iii. 
10-12 ; iv. i). 

Whence came this word of judgment and of glorious pre- 
vision? The prophet himself has told us in a preceding verse : 
" But I truly am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of 
judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgres- 
sion, and to Israel his sin." 

Or, again, amid the prevalent formalism of his day, Micah 
holds up his lovely and perfect picture of spiritual religion : 
" He hath showed thee, man, what is good ; and what doth 
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God? " But does Micah offer 
this as his ideal and summation of the law and the prophets? 
On the contrary, he knows it to have been given to him even 
more truly than it was given by him to the people. " Hear 
ye now what the Lord saith " is his introduction of this pro- 
phetic word. 

Still more mightily did the Spirit speak through the Apostles 
of Jesus. In fact, all His previous manifestations were not to 
be reckoned in comparison (John vii. 39). So supremely great 
was this gift of the Spirit that Jesus spoke of it as the promise 
of the Father (Acts i. 4). What more could have been prom- 
ised them? For truly God Himself is His own best gift. So, 
while the church waited and prayed together with one accord, 
the baptism of the Spirit came upon them. Sincerity of pur- 
pose was not enough ; to have been eye- and ear-witnesses of 
the Crucifixion and the Resurrection was not enough ; three 
years of companionship with the Incarnate Word, as the 
chosen depositaries of His doctrine, was not enough. They 



530 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

must receive the truth by immediate communication from the 
indwelling Spirit. 

When the Lord appeared to the father of the faithful, to 
make an everlasting covenant with him, His word was not 
simply such an assurance as "I will reward thee," but "/ 
am . . . thy exceeding great reward" (Gen. xv. i). And 
again, when the covenant was renewed, the promise was, — " To 
be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. . . . And I 
will be their God " (Gen. xvii. 7, 8). As the ages and dispen- 
sations came on the promise was more and more perfectly 
fulfilled. When God gave His Son to the world, in the In- 
carnation, He gave Himself as never before. To have Jesus 
was to have the Father. " As many as received Him, to them 
gave He the right to become children of God." But after 
Jesus went away in the flesh, and came again to abide in the 
Spirit, men could believe on Him and receive Him as they 
could not have done so long as He walked visibly in their 
presence, and had not yet given up His life in the sacrifice of 
the Cross. And now the word of God to Abraham, spoken 
two thousand years before, at the very beginning of the church's 
history, the great covenant word, was indeed fulfilled. 

Paul was not present at Pentecost ; but the heavenly vision 
came to him later, and he was not disobedient thereto. From 
that time forth he lived and walked in the Spirit ; and hence 
it could not but have been that his preaching, whatever it may 
have lacked in human art or eloquence, was in demonstration 
of the Spirit and of power. Take out this element from his 
ministry, reduce his preaching to the level of mere naturalism, 
and there is nothing left that the apostle would have cared to 
retain. Paul received the Gospel by the revelation in him of 
the Son of God, that he " might preach Him among the Gen- 
tiles " (Gal. i. 16) ; and he delivered that revealed Word under 
the inspiration and power of the Spirit. 

May the Word of God come to us as it did to them of old 
time, and so be delivered by living men to our generation? 



THE TONGUE OF FIRE 631 

May we speak, not of ourselves, but as the Spirit gives utter- 
ance? If not, I cannot see how we can be, in any proper and 
scriptural sense, preachers of the Gospel. It is the character- 
istic trait of the Christian preacher, not that he teaches a cer- 
tain doctrine, — he could learn that, in some sense, and recite 
it, from the Scriptures and from books of theology,— but that 
he speaks in Christ's name immediately from God. Until this 
is done, there is nothing to the purpose. If the divine voice 
speak not through us as truly — I do not say, with the same 
signs and visions, or to make any new revelation of truth — as 
ever through prophet or apostle, it were better that we keep 
silent. Preaching is indeed " truth through personality," but 
it is by the Divine Personality. That same Spirit by whom, 
pleading within us and helping our infirmities, we are enabled 
to pray, and by whom, revealing the things that not the senses 
nor the imagination nor reasoning can discover, the eyes of 
our understanding are enlightened, — shall He not make us 
"sufficient as ministers of a new covenant"? And when, in 
all our unworthiness and inability, we stand before the people, 
will He not be our Inspirer, and communicate unto us and 
unto them the word of life? 

Said Cornelius the centurion to Simon Peter : " Now there- 
fore we are all here present in the sight of God, to hear all 
things that have been commanded thee of the Lord." What 
would this apostle have had to say but for the vision which 
had come to him, and the voice of God declaring that the 
Gentiles were fellow-heirs of the great salvation? A special 
case, will it be said? True; but the general principle is that 
no preacher is prepared to stand before his congregation, 
whether it be for the first or for the thousandth time, till he 
has had some vision of heavenly truth and has heard the voice " 
of God in his soul. " If any man speaketh, speaking as it were 
oracles of God" (i Pet. iv. n). 

We are told of a preacher who was asked, " Are you not 
afraid when you see so many learned and distinguished people 



532 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

in your congregation?" and whose answer was: "No, I am 
not ; though I know that many are my superiors in general 
knowledge and in biblical scholarship, yet I am sure that none 
of them has studied the particular subject of my sermon more 
diligently than I have." It is a pity he had no better answer. 
If he were a true Christian preacher he might have said : " I 
know and feel the Word of God, like fire from heaven in my 
soul ; and I must speak it to the people. No matter how much 
knowledge of any sort they may have, it cannot be useless that 
they should hear a present and living message from God." 

Now to preach with the tongue of fire is not the same thing 
as to enjoy fluency and eloquence of speech. It is not the 
same thing as to have liberty. Any man who has the natural 
ability and complies with the oratorical requirements may 
speak with fluency and eloquence on any subject. These, 
too, are gifts of God to be employed in His service. For the 
preacher, as a speaker, to despise any natural power or acqui- 
sition is not faith ; it is fanaticism. But natural powers and 
acquisitions are by no means adequate to Christian preaching. 
To be satisfied because our ideas have been suffused with 
emotion, and have flowed forth in genial and unembarrassed 
expression, is to be unfaithful to that whereunto we are called. 
It is to take that which is at best a condition and a subordinate 
good as the infinitely greater end. Moreover, such conditions, 
though desirable, are not necessary. The tongue may trip and 
hesitate, the sentences may be involved or meager, the intel- 
lectual outlook may be poor; and yet the words may be at- 
tended with an indefinable spiritual power. They may bring 
men to their knees before God, and raise them up in the joyful 
assurance of pardon and peace. " Follow after love ; yet de- 
sire earnestly spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy. 
. . . And so he will fall down on his face and worship God, 
declaring that God is among you indeed" (i Cor. xiv. i, 25). 

May we know, then, by any token, that the Spirit of the 
Lord is with us in the ministration of His Word? We may ; 



THE TONGUE OF FIRE 533 

and by such evidence as proves Him to be with us in any 
other part of Our life and work. Not mental vivacity, not 
fresh and original thought, not the thrill of pathos or of poetry, 
not scholarly accuracy of knowledge, not readiness and energy 
of speech; the witness of the Spirit is not in these things. 
It is in the feeling of filial nearness to God, and of yearn- 
ing, Christ-like love for men. It is in the sense of divine 
communion, which makes us know our prayer is heard, which 
bruises Satan beneath our feet, which makes the things of 
the kingdom of God very real to our apprehension, which 
gives to the word spoken " in weakness, and in fear, and in 
much trembling " the tone of conviction and authority. 

Shall I name the conditions for receiving this enduement of 
Christian and ministerial power? 

i. A sincere and holy life. The preacher may bring con- 
stant reproach upon his Lord by self-indulgence, by covetous- 
ness, by ambition, by frivolity, in his daily conduct ; and yet 
may speak with freedom and eloquence in the pulpit. One of 
the most pleasing pulpit speakers I have ever known proved 
utterly corrupt in character. But no man can live an unfaith- 
ful life and receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit from Sunday 
to Sunday. 

Will souls be saved under an unholy ministry? It may be. 
An idle hand might write down a word of truth— say, some 
verse of Scripture— and cast it out thoughtlessly on the street ; 
and some passer-by might find in it the word of salvation. 
But what does this prove against real preaching? Here is 
Christ's institution for the evangelizing of the world. And if 
a man be called to preach at all, he must be called to preach, 
not according to some worldly or ecclesiastical or merely per- 
sonal conception of his office, but in the way that Christ has 
ordained, — not in word only, but in the Holy Spirit. But if 
we would have this Spirit in our preaching, we must have it in 
our life. Read the pastoral Epistles, or indeed any of the 
Epistles, and say whether, according to the wisdom given to 



534 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Paul and his fellow-apostles, a spiritual mind and a righteous 
life are not an indispensable condition of ministerial success. 
To walk with Jesus, in the freedom of sonship to God ; to beat 
down the carnal desires of the flesh, so as not to follow or be 
led by them ; to put away all jealousy and fretfulness and evil- 
speaking ; to seek no place of honor or profit or ease in the 
church ; to be all aglow with love and zeal, — in this way of 
holiness, and in no other, shall we be endowed with true min- 
istering power. 

2. Faithful preparation to preach, in the use of all our natural 
powers. Do what you can, trusting and working ; for this too 
is God's law. Indolence is unholy presumption. Why should 
it be incumbent upon us to study and to speak at all, if it 
be not required that we do these things faithfully and well? 
" Whereunto I labor also," says the Apostle to the Gentiles, 
"striving according to His working, which worketh in me 
mightily." Human power alone, though exerted to the ut- 
most, is insufficient, and in its very nature unadapted, to 
achieve the result ; but God has been pleased to ordain it as 
an earthly vessel to hold and convey the heavenly treasure. 

It is one of Richard Cecil's wise observations : " I have 
been cured of expecting the Holy Spirit's influence without 
due preparation on our part, by observing how men preach 
who take up that error. . . . One errs who says,' I will preach 
a reputable sermon ' ; and another who says, ' I will leave all 
to the assistance of the Holy Spirit,' while he has neglected a 
diligent preparation." 

3. The prayer of faith. Habitual prayer? Yes ; and spe- 
cific prayer, and supplication. The first disciples needed it, 
though the promise of the Spirit had been given to them 
audibly and articulately, even from the lips of Jesus (Acts i. 4). 
The Son of God— with wonder and awe do we read the record 
— poured out strong cries and tears to the Father, who heard 
Him always. From His fasting and temptation in the wilder- 
ness " Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. 



THE TONGUE OF FIRE 535 

. . . And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified of 
all." At His baptism He was praying when the Holy Spirit 
descended and abode upon Him. Before choosing the Twelve 
out of the whole company of disciples Jesus spent the night, 
from evening to morning, in prayer to God. Just before 
quitting Galilee for the last time, and starting on His way to 
Jerusalem, there to be offered up,— the shadow of the Cross 
falling dark and dreadful upon His soul, — " as He was praying, 
the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment 
became white and dazzling." It was as if He were even now 
to ascend to the heavenly places. And there came a voice 
" from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom 
I am well pleased." But this glorification was not for heaven ; 
it was for earth. It was the preparation given Him of the 
Father for His last painful conflicts with His enemies, for His 
last words of divine consolation and hope to His disciples, for 
Gethsemane and Calvary. 

Can we do our work without prayer? Have we thought to 
walk the path of holiness and power, and never ascend those 
serene and awful heights of face-to-face communion with God ? 
It cannot be. It is thence and thither that the pathway leads. 
There can be no substitute for whole-hearted and absorbing 
prayer. Not that God is unwilling to give the Holy Spirit to 
them that ask Him. How much more parental love in Him 
than He has put into the heart of any earthly father or mother! 
But we must ask indeed, else are we incapable of receiving. It 
must be our dominant desire to find God, to know Christ, to be 
made the willing and obedient instruments of the Spirit's power. 

There are many things to which you could not attain. You 
will probably never become such an orator as John the Golden- 
mouthed, nor such a thinker as Joseph Butler, nor such a Bible 
scholar as Franz Delitzsch, nor such an originator of timely 
and fruitful forms of Christian work as George Williams or 
William Booth, nor such a missionary explorer as Livingstone, 
nor such a translator of the Scriptures as Van Dyck of Beirut. 



D36 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

Their gifts and opportunities, with the attendant responsibility, 
are not yours. You have your own ; and the time is coming 
when you will be convinced that they were great enough. But 
you may come as near to God, and abide as faithfully and 
lovingly in His presence, as could any of these gifted and 
elect spirits. You may receive the Word as directly from the 
Father of lights ; and the same all-powerful Spirit will attend 
its utterance. 

Peculiarities of temperament and of endowment will not be 
abolished. Each man's preaching will not become like every 
other man's. Rather the contrary. The higher the develop- 
ment of organs, the more distinct and perfect their differentia- 
tion. Every series of living things, from the plant to the man, 
exemplifies this principle of the wondrous and beautiful econ- 
omy of the world. So must it be with the exaltation and en- 
richment of our natural powers by the Spirit of life. It was of 
a New Testament, not of the Old Testament, church that the 
statement was made : " Now there are diversities of gifts, but 
the same Spirit. And there are diversities of administration, 
and the same Lord." There will be no loss of individuality : 
there wi 1 be the gain of renewal and revivification, the touch 
of the live coal from the temple altar. 

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit will solve the question of 
success in your life-work. Success! A much-abused term, 
and yet standing for the most momentous of life's realities. 
Does it mean to number thousands of professions of faith under 
our ministry? or to present some neglected and unrealized 
truth, showing it on all sides and in every possible manner, till 
finally it becomes a real possession, operative and effectual in 
the Christian community? or to break the power of worldli- 
ness and unbelief in the church, to reclaim the wandering, to 
be an able minister to the holiest and the most enlightened 
souls, to make the church more and more a living church 
abounding in good works? Does it mean to be stoned at 
Lystra, to win Dionysius the Areopagite and a few others at 



THE TONGUE OF FIRE 537 

Athens, or to stay a year and a half and found a church in 
Corinth? Does it mean to return with Wesley, baffled and 
disappointed, from America and from Scotland, or to see 
"much people added unto the Lord " in England and Ireland? 
Does it mean to labor six years in a missionary field and make 
but a single convert, as Judson did in Burma, or to win such 
an epitaph as that of Geddie on the island of Aneityum : 
" When he landed here in 1848 there were no Christians ; and 
when he left in 1872 there were no heathens"? Does it 
mean to plow on the rock, or to reap the plentiful grain of the 
river-bottom? Any and all of these things, but in principle 
none of them. It is to be in Christ. It is to be a worker to- 
gether with God. His purpose will be accomplished. The 
word of His Son, who is the faithful and true Witness, shall 
find its fulfilment. Are we in the line of the divine move- 
ment? Then "our labor is not in vain in the Lord." Can 
the everlasting God, the Maker of heaven and earth, fail? 
Neither can those who live in His Spirit and do His will. They 
are the very instruments of God, in His hand, wielded by His 
almighty power in the doing of His own work in the world. 
Failure is excluded. 

Your ministry may be very brief. As in the case of John 
the Baptist, or George Herbert, or David Brainerd, or Thomas 
Walsh, or McCheyne, or Summerfield, a few months or years 
may tell the story. It will probably be longer. I hope it may 
extend through half a century. But no matter. Learn to 
measure time intensively rather than extensively. Estimate 
life, not by the number of its years, but by the nobleness of its 
purpose. Better one day's flight of the eagle than all the 
sightless crawling of the earthworm. Better the record of 
Stephen than that of Methuselah. Let your ministry be in- 
tense, deep-hearted, Christian; let it thrill with holy and dar- 
ing enthusiasm. Let it be a " ministration of the Spirit " ; and 
whether it be long or short, it will " exceed in glory." 

O how greatly is such a ministry needed! There are 



538 THE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION 

millions of souls in our land, after all these ages of Christian 
institutions, who never hear the Gospel. There are other 
millions who hear it only to neglect the great salvation, or to 
limp feebly and unfaithfully in the path of life. Every Chris- 
tian preacher has felt more painfully than words can express 
how hard it is to reach men savingly with the truth. The in- 
tellect may be interested and convinced, and the secret springs 
of desire may be touched ; but the man himself, in his hard- 
ness and impenitent heart, may still resist. Only the voice of 
God in the Gospel can break the terrible charm of sin, and 
create the will to follow Jesus. Powerless will be our preach- 
ing if there be not heard in it, through all its errors and de- 
fects, that Voice, that Word, that Spirit, which is the power 
of God unto salvation. 

Be strong and of good courage. The future is bright and 
full of promise. There will be many interesting incidents in 
the life upon which you are entering, many delightful associa- 
tions, many deep experiences. You will be the recipients of 
great kindness and confidence from your people. The Eng- 
lish-speaking race to which you belong is foremost not only 
in the diffusion of its ideas, but also in the evangelizing of the 
world. The age in which it has pleased Eternal Wisdom that 
you should appear is an age of transcendent opportunity. 
Through discovery and invention, through interchange of ideas 
and the wide diffusion of the spirit of humanity, the people of 
the earth are gathering closer and closer together. The cur- 
rent history of mankind is read at our breakfast-tables, day by 
day, and forms a part of our daily interest and thought. The 
ends of the world are at our doors. Dear brethren, it is good 
to live such a life of opportunity and help ; to be in spirit as in 
fact a brother to men ; to go in and out among them preach- 
ing the eternal law of God and the good tidings of peace by 
Jesus Christ. But the best of all is that God Himself will be 
in you, and will set your words aflame with the fire of His own 
unutterable love. 



THE TONGUE OF FIRE 539 

Let us pray together : " Now the God of peace who brought 
again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, with the 
blood of the everlasting covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make 
you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in 
you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus 
Christ ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." 



INDEX 



Alexander, Dr. Archibald, 187, 

428, 456. 
Alexander, Dr. James W., 291, 

458, 463, 510. 
Almsgiving, a scriptural duty, 413, 

414. 
must be wisely directed, 414, 

415- 
Amen, 27. 
Amplification, intellectual acts in, 

3I3-3I5- 

action of the will in, 315—317- 
materials of, 320-323. 
qualities of, 323-326. 
should be relevant, 323. 
should be continuous, 324, 325. 
should observe oratorical order, 

325- 

should be adequate, 325. 

should be proportionate, 326. 
Analogy, definition and formula of, 
178. 

sources of uncertainty in, 178, 
179. 

a fortiori argument an example 
of, 179, 180. 

in answer to objections, 180, 181. 
Application, needed in amplification, 
321, 322. 

may be distributed through the 
sermon, 344-346. 

may be all reserved for the con- 
clusion, 347. 

may be both distributed and com- 
pact, 347, 348. 

of last division may serve as con- 
clusion, 348. 



Architecture of churches, for con- 
venience of worshipers, 77, 78. 
for convenience of preacher, 502, 

503- 
Argument, definition of, 159. 
inferior to intuition, 160. 
in revival preaching, 161. 
in all rational discourse, 161. 
may be condensed in a sentence 

or a term, 161, 162. 
not distinctive of Christianpreach- 

ing, 162. 
no reply permitted, 162, 163. 
clear statement may save the 

necessity of, 167. 
should be real, not verbal, 1 67, 1 68. 
should be constructive, 169-171. 
negative argument of two kinds, 

171, 172. 
should be adapted to the hearer's 

state of mind, 173-175. 
should be select and brief, 1 75> 

176. 
may sometimes be presumptive 

or analogical, 176. 
should be truthful, 176-178. 
should be just, 178-184. 
intellectual effect of honesty in 

the use of, 184. 
Aristotle, 222, 417. 
Arnold, Susannah, 4. 
Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 368. 
Asbury, Bishop, 4, 5, 427. 
Attention, necessary to invention of 

plan, 296-298. 
necessary to amplification, 316, 

317. 320. 



541 



542 



IXDEX 



Augustine, 138, 301, 512. 

Barrow, Dr. Isaac, 366. 
Bautain, M., 516. 
Baxter, 4, 357, 504. 
Beauty, symbolism of, 5, 6. 

devotional effects of, 23, 24. 

of style, 361, 376-378- 
Bede, the Venerable, 138. 
Beecher, H. W., 223, 429, 481. 
Behrends, Dr. A. J., 29, 504. 
Benediction, a prayerful wish, 81, 82. 

history of, 81, 82. 

not a mere form, 82, 83. 
Benjamin, Hon. Judah P., 492. 
Bernard, Rev. T. D., 161. 
Bernard of Clairvaux, 4, 59, 372. 
Bernard of Cluny, 59. 
Bible, prayers of, 70. 

a collection of little books, 145. 

as a source of illustrations, 217. 
Blaikie, Dr. William G., 233. 
Bohler, Peter, 149. 
Books, in relation to the Bible, 7. 

passionate fondness for, 7. 

not an end, 8. 

of devotion, 70. 

of illustrations to be used spar- 
ingly, 216. 
Booth, General William, 423, 535. 
Boyd, A. K. H., 200. 
Brainerd, David, 537. 
Bright, Hon. John, 466, 521. 
Broadus, Dr. John A., 437. 
Brooks, Phillips, 126, 190, 252, 

279. 293. 353. 395. 403, 478. 
Browning, Mrs. E. B., 8. 
Bryant, William Cullen, 408. 
Bunyan, 150, 359, 361, 381, 477. 
Burton, Dr. Nathaniel J., 506. 
Bushnell, 293, 294, 295, 415, 461. 
Butler, Bishop, 181, 403, 535. 

Calvin, 4, 142, 234, 408. 
Campbell, George, 227. 
Carpenter, Bishop W. B., 260, 293. 
Cartwright, Peter, 191. 
Carvosso, 197. 
Cecil, Richard, 299, 534. 
Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, 71, no, 

262, 315, 326, 366, 415, 461, 

473- 



Character, man's highest attain- 
ment, n. 
the ideal of, 12, 13. 
Choate, Rufus, 497. 
Christian testimony, in prayer- 
meeting, 90-93. 
offered by all Christians, 185, 

186. 
prominent in pulpit, 186-188. 
not altogether unconscious, 189, 

190. 
not an exceptional use of testi- 
mony, 190, 191. 
variety in, 191. 
validity of, 191-193. 
in past and present, 193. 
mistakes in the argument from, 

193-195- 
authority of, 195-197. 
Chrysostom, 155, 334, 346, 499, 

535- 
Church a body of witnesses, 185. 
Cicero, 327, 332, 367, 374, 375, 

469, 494. 
Clark, Bishop T. M., 406. 
Clarke, Adam, 463. 
Coleridge, 29, 519. 
Composition, distinguished from 
planning, 312. 
mental attitude in, 368, 369. 
Conclusion, necessity of, 340-343. 
causes of failure in, 343, 344. 
how related to the whole applica- 
tion, 344-348. 
in form of recapitulation, 349- 

35i- 

in form of illustration, 351, 352. 

in form of inferences, 352-355. 

in form of exhortation, 355-357. 
Congregational prayer, not sub- 
stituted by sermon, 68, 72. 

general preparation for, 68—70. 

specific preparation for, 70, 71. 

writing beforehand, 71, 72. 

reality in, 72. 

favorite phrases in, 73- 

extravagance of language in, 73. 

use of the names of God in, 74. 

reverence in, 74. 

too frequent utterance of the 
name of God in, 75. 

use of "you " in, 75. 



INDEX 



543 



amatory words in, 75. 

praying at congregation in, 76. 

rhetorical finery in, 76. 

speaking of God in, 76. 

violent tone in, 77. 

hasty closing of, 77. 

attitudes in, 77. 

explicitness in, 78. 

communion and petition in, 78. 

an order of topics suggested for, 
79- 

length of, 80. 

at close of services, 80. 
Contextual sermons a variety of the 

textual, 128, 129. 
Controversial sermons, exceptional, 
163. 

should be high-toned, 163. 

may disturb hearers' minds, 164. 

should be free from personalities, 
164. 
Coquerel, Athanase, 475. 
Cowper, William, 392. 
Curran, Hon. John P., 478. 
Cuyler, Dr. T. L., 90, 113, 352, 
467, 481. 

Dale, Dr. R. W., 119, 177, 188, 

255. 453- 
Deduction, definition of, 182, 183. 
certainty of, 183. 
demonstrative and moral, 183. 
Deems, Dr. C. F., 43, 128, 221, 

295, 303» 347. 353. 380, 483- 
Definition, may save necessity of 
argument, 164-167. 
may prevent merely verbal argu- 
ment, 169. 
Delitzsch, 147, 535. 
De Quincey, 376. 

Description, a process of imagina- 
tion, 198. 
should be selective, 199, 202. 
extravagance in, 203. 
should not be harrowing, 203, 

204. 
should be true to facts, 204, 205. 
should not take place of truth 
itself, 206-208. 
Disorder in worship, 25. 

ministerial examples of, 26, 27. 
Disraeli, Hon. Benjamin, 472. 



Divine power in preaching, illus- 
trated in natural world, 526, 
527- 

illustrated in human life, 527, 
528. 

illustrated in prophets and apos- 
tles, 52S, 529. 

the characteristic trait of preach- 
ing, 530-532. 

how related to natural powers, 
532.. 

how evidenced, 532, 533. 

how related to personal holiness, 
533, 534- 

how related to preparation to 
preach, 534. 

how related to prayer, 534, 535. 

equally attainable by all, 535, 536. 

will not repress individuality, 536. 

will solve the question of success, 
536, 537- 

present need of, 538. 
Divisions, definition of, 271. 

not essential but important, 272, 
280, 281. 

founded on a law of the mind, 

273-275- 

helpful to the preacher's own 
thinking, 275. 

objections to the use of, 275-279. 

illustration of the use of, 279, 280. 

discovery of, 281. 

should not make unreal distinc- 
tions, 282. 

should not make similar ideas too 
distinct, 283. 

should not consist of variant inter- 
pretations, 283, 284. 

should not ascribe fanciful mean- 
ings, 284, 285. 

should not develop words dispro- 
portionately, 285-288. 

scholastic method of, 288, 289. 

invention of, 290. 

should be invented with materials, 
290, 291, 315. 

maybe chosen from various points 
of view, 291-296. 

requisites of, 299. 

should be one's own, 299-301. 

should belong to the subject 
announced, 301, 302. 



544 



INDEX 



should not cross, 302, 303. 
should be coordinate, 303, 304. 
should be few, 304, 305. 
should be strong and suggestive, 

305. 306. 
should be clear, 306. 

should observe oratorical order, 

306, 3°7- 

examples of, for criticism, 308, 

309- 
preannouncement of, 309, 310. 
should be alike in structure, 310, 

3ii- 
Duncan, Dr. James A., 504. 
Duty, a Christian motive, 236, 237. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 161, 234. 
Elocution, study of, 478-480. 
Eloquence, from consciousness of 
speaking for God, 107, 108. 
an expression of virtue, 473. 
dependent on culture, 476-478. 
in the man himself, 485. 
expressed in conversational style, 
501-503. 
Embarrassment, may be caused by 
vanity, 492. 
may be cured by prayer and love, 

492. 493- 

may be caused by sensitiveness, 

493. 494- 

Emotions, not the same as motives, 

245. 246. 
not necessary in exhortation, 357. 
English Bible, the, 35. 
Erskine, Thomas, 497. 
Experience makes doctrine preach- 

able, 149, 188, 189. 
Explanation, of subjects, 159. 
sometimes needed in amplifica- 
tion, 320. 
Exposition, the fundamental process 
in development of sermon, 132. 
should be reasonable, 136-143. 
should not be perverted by theo- 
logical prejudgments, 140. 
should not distort Scripture for 

homiletic purposes, 141. 
should recognize the local and 

temporary, 141- 143. 
cannot be learned at once, 143. 
should be contextual, 144-147. 



should be spiritually true, 147— 

should be homiletical, 151, 152. 
Expository sermons, not repellent, 

153- 

no lack of materials for, 154. 

not coordinate with topical and 
textual, 155. 

should have unity, 156. 

may be substituted by lectures, 
158. 
Extemporaneous preaching, analy- 
sis of, 509, 510. 

preeminence of, 510, 511. 

spontaneity as to voice in, 512. 

spontaneity as to language in, 
512, 513. 

spontaneity as to thought in, 513. 

discrimination in, 513, 5 X 4- 

irrelevance in, 514. 

exertion of will-power in, 514- 

5 l6 - 
impressibleness to audience in, 

516. 
individualizing audience in, 516- 

5i8. 
determination in, 518-520. 
rejection of irrelevant ideas in, 

5i8, 519. 
innervation of intellect in, 519, 

520. 
effectiveness of reserved force in, 

520-522. 
brevity in, 522-524. 
looking to God in, 524, 525. 

Fallacy, of accent, 39. 
of proof-texts, 145. 
of objections, 172. 
Faults of speech, as to voice, 486- 
488. 
as to facial expression and ges- 
ture, 488, 489. 
Fawcett, Rev. John, 57. 
Figures of speech, should not be 
interpreted literally, 136, 137. 
used as illustrations, 210, 211. 
should not appear in proposition, 

267-269. 
should not be elaborate, 375. 
Finney, Pres. Charles G., 161, 220, 
380, 456, 503. 



INDEX 



545 



Flavel, John, 443. 
Fletcher of Madeley, 4. 
Formalism in worship, 21. 

theological consummation of, 21. 

not restricted to any form, 22. 

in use of ritual, 33. 
Forms of worship, necessity of, 28, 
29. 

must differ with congregations, 
30. 

in New Testament churches, 30, 

3i- 
written, 31, 32. 
history of, 32, 33. 
Foss, Bishop C. D., 294. 
Foster, John, 322. 
Fox, George, 22, 196. 
Francis d'Assisi, 372. 
Funeral sermons, not so common 
as formerly, 408, 409. 
should be sympathetic and truth- 
ful, 409, 410. 

Gladstone, 3, 84. 
Gough, John B., 494. 
Government, relation of preacher 
to, 416, 417. 
morality and immorality of, 417, 
418. 
Granbery, Bishop J. C, 292. 
Greek Testament, knowledge of, 

134- 
Green, J. R., 58. 
Greer, Dr. D. H., 467, 481. 
Griffin, Dr. E. D., 408. 
Guthrie, Dr. Thomas, 113, 223. 

Hall, Dr. Robert, 4, 164, 322, 366, 

46S, 477- 
Hare, Julius C., 462. 
Harris, Dr. Samuel, 166. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 494. 
Health, not underrated by Chris- 
tianity, 2. 
enters into sermon, 3. 
how to keep and increase, 4. 
good work done in bad health, 

4, 5- 
Hebrew, knowledge of, 134, 135. 
Herbert, George, 56, 186, 249, 289, 

537- 
Hill, Rowland, 507. 



Hoge, Dr. Moses D., 120. 

Holy Spirit, need of, in prayer, 81. 

the infallible guide, 147-149. 
Homiletics, begins with the man 
himself, 2, 13. 

suggestiveness of the word, 502. 
Hoppin, Dr. J. M., 461, 462. 
Howe, John, 276. 
Humanity, a quality of preaching, 

385. 

a Christian spirit, 385, 386. 

a sympathy with men as men, 
386-388. 

not always shown in preaching, 
388. 

may be chilled by scholastic se- 
clusion, 388, 389. 

work of the pastorate favorable 
to, 389. 
Hymn-book, history of, 60, 61. 
Hymns, classification of, 55. 

distinguished from sacred songs, 

55- 
didactic, 55, 68. 
circumstances in which composed, 

56-58. 
of different ages, 58. 
for different stages of experience, 

59, 60. 
authorship of, 60. 
objectionable sentiment in, 61, 

62. 
objectionable imagery in, 62, 63. 
prosaic, 63. 

best qualities of, 63, 64. 
mechanism of, 64. 
selection of, 64, 65. 
in prayer-meeting, 96. 

Illustrations, make the truth real, 
209, 210. 

symbols used as, 211. 

examples used as, 211-213. 

the whole sermon may be an 
illustration, 213. 

not to be taken from unfamiliar 
objects or events, 213-215. 

should not be trite, 215, 216. 

found in books, 216, 217. 

found in one's own life, 218. 

found in facts of common obser- 
vation, 219-221. 



546 



INDEX 



found in congregation, 221, 222. 

found by looking for them, 222, 
223. 

should be truthful, 223-225. 

should be set down in note-book, 
225, 226. 

should not be numerous, 226- 
228. 

should not determine construc- 
tion of discourse, 228. 

should not be long, 228, 229. 

should be pertinent, 229. 

should be briefly introduced, 229. 

should be energetically applied, 
230, 231. 

may constitute conclusion, 351, 

352. 

make abstract truth effective, 381, 
382. 

in preaching to children, 435-437. 
Imagination, in Scripture reading, 
42. 

constantly exercised, 198. 

cultivable, 199. 

necessary to description, 206. 

necessary to amplification, 313. 

in preaching to children, 435. 
Induction, definition of, 181. 

conditions of certainty in, 181, 
182. 

furnishes premises for deduction, 
183. 
Industrial conditions, now and for- 
merly, 418, 419. 

church's duty toward, 419, 420. 

Christianity at the heart of, 420. 

teaching of Christ concerning, 
420, 421. 

perfected by the Christian princi- 
ple of cooperation, 421, 422. 

how related to the kingdom of 
heaven, 422, 423. 
Inference, distinguished from re- 
mark, 353. 

principles of, 354, 355. 
Introduction, should come of itself, 

32.7- 
classic doctrine of, 327-329. 
explanation the main object of, 

329- 

subordinate objects of, 330, 331. 
sometimes not needed, 331, 332. 



should be developed out of the 
subject, 332, 333. 

not the same as introduction of 
the speaker, ZZZ- 

should be specific, 334. 

should be distinct from what fol- 
lows, 335. 

should be easily intelligible, 336. 

should be varied, 336, 337. 

should be proportionate, 337-339. 
Irving, Washington, 106. 

Jebb, Prof. R. C, 463. 
Johns, Bishop John, 465. 

Keble, 59, 60. 
Ker, Rev. John, 114. 
Kindness to animals, 122, 423. 
Kingsley, Charles, 6, 272, 431. 
Knowledge, and thought, 6. 

of men, 8, 9. 

a source of power in Scripture 
reading, 40, 41. 

Language of Bible, popular, 139. 

figurative, 382. 
Learning makes the truth plain, 1 50. 
Leighton, Archbishop, 154. 
Length of sermons, 304, 523, 524. 
Liddon, Canon, 21, 296, 395, 461, 

491. 
Lightfoot, John, 147. 
Lind, Jenny, 149, 477. 
Livingstone, David, 476, 535. 
Lord's Supper, the, 137, 142. 
Love the highest motive, 237. 
Luther, 21, 50, 136, 148, 224, 395, 
483. 

Maclaren, Dr. Alexander, 1 15, 157, 

282, 310. 
Macleod, Norman, 181, 379, 462, 

492. 
Marvin, Bishop E. M., 373, 374, 

408, 443, 503, 509. 
McCheyne, Robert Murray, 81, 

496, 537- 
Mcllvaine, Bishop, 37. 
McKee, Dr. J. L., 433. 
McMillan, Rev. Hugh, 287. 
McNeill, Rev. John, 43, 158, 201, 

214. 3 8 9. 390. 



INDEX 



54/7 



McTyeire, Bishop H. N,, 170. 
Meditation, in worship, 22, 23. 

in prayer-meeting, 96. 
Mental vacuity in worship, 22. 
Milburn, Rev. William H., 472. 
Misread passages of Scripture, 153. 
Missionary preaching, 410, 41 1. 
Monod, Adolphe, 116, 333, 475. 
Moody, D. L., 125, 161, 230, 345, 

453- 
Morality and religion, the relations 

of, 12. 
Motives, conditions for action of 
the will, 234. 
rational and impulsive, 234, 235. 
classification of, 235. 
must be adapted to the hearer, 

238, 239. 
the higher preferable to the lower, 

239-241. 
as addressed in New Testament, 

241, 242. 
reached through the intellect, 

243, 244. 
reached by help of emotions, 244- 
246. 
Mozley, Canon, 366. 
Munsey, Rev. William E., 376. 

Narration, akin to description, 208. 

should be suggestive, 208. 
Natural affection as a motive, 243. 
Neesima, 121. 

Newman, Cardinal, 259, 369, 516. 
Newton, Dr. Richard, 431, 433. 

Obedience a means of spiritual 

knowledge, 150, 151. 
Old Testament, the, quoted in New, 
104, 105. 
fulfilled in New, 112. 
not substituted by New, 112, 113. 
Ole Bull, 497. 
Order, not uniformity, 27. 

in prayers, 79. 
Order in pulpit teaching, 397-399. 
determined by Christian doctrine, 

399, 400. 
determined by circumstances, 

400-402. 
determined by personal expe- 
rience, 402-404. 



determined by the people them- 
selves, 404, 405. 
Ostervald, 260. 
Owen, Dr. John, 276. 

Paley, 239. 

Palmer, Ray, 443. 

Parker, Dr. Joseph, 86, 114, 154, 

229, 278. 
Pat on, Rev. John G., 52, 82. 
Patrick, St., 193. 
Pauperism, 413-415. 
Peck, Dr. J. O., 448. 
Penn, William, 386. 
Personal aim, the, 1, 2. 
Personal preparation, significance 
of, 471. 

a lifelong matter, 472, 473. 

spirituality the chief element of, 
473-475- 

joyousness an element of, 475, 
476, 483. 

as to the body, 477, 478. 

as to the mind, 478. 

as to the spirit, 478. 

should be specific as well as gen- 
eral, 480. 

as to fatigue, 480, 481. 

as to eating, 481. 

as to heart-searching, 482. 

as to prayer, 482, 483. 

as to a sense of responsibility, 483. 
Persuasion, definition of, 232. 

importance of, 232, 233. 
Phelps, Dr. Austin, 75, 261, 268, 

288, 327, 457, 499, 522. 
Philo, 138. 

Pierce, Bishop George, 233, 464. 
Pierce, Dr. Lovick, 141, 301. 
Power of expression developed, by 
development of the man, 364. 

by conversation, 364, 365. 

by knowledge of language, 365. 

by reading, 365, 366. 

by writing and speaking, 366, 

367- 
by a full mind, 367, 368. 
Prayer, for one's self in the pulpit, 
78. 
in prayer-meeting, 96, 97. 
while making the sermon, 316. 
at funerals, 410. 



648 



INDEX 



Prayer-meeting, the, a burden or an 

inspiration, 84. 
how related to the pulpit, 85. 
general and specific preparation 

for, 85, 86. 
announcement of, 87. 
physical conditions of, 87, 88. 
compactness of congregation in, 

promptness in opening and clos- 
ing, 88. 

for communion and service, 88, 89. 

origin of, 89, 90. 

should be devotional, 93, 94. 

the talk in, 96. 

should be spiritual, 97, 98. 
Preaching to children, helpful to 
the preacher, 425, 426. 

wins parents, 426. 

encouraging field for, 426, 427. 

in the Sunday-school, 428. 

in the general congregation, 428- 
430. 

before the sermon to the general 
congregation, 430. 

distinctively, 431, 432. 

with questions and answers, 432. 

preparation for, 432, 433. 

should not be childish, 433. 

sympathy in, 434. 

vivacity in, 434, 435. 

imaginative power in, 435. 

use of illustrations in, 435-437. 

moral earnestness in, 437, 438. 

discrimination in, 438-440. 

choice of themes for, 439. 
Preparation with reference to de- 
livery, importance of, 455. 

may be habitual only, 456, 457. 

must not be presumptuous, 457. 

may include a general outline 
only, 457-460. 

must not be made in the pulpit, 

45 8 » 459- 
may be written, 460-462. 
should give play to the personal 

element, 462, 464. 
may be memoriter, 462, 464. 
may differ in the case of different 

men, 462, 463. 
not the same as preparation for 

acting, 464. 



may be memoriter without writ- 
ing, 464, 465. 
may be extemporaneous, 465-468. 
may be partly written, 466, 467. 
may be written and extempora- 
neous, 468-470. 
the most thorough method of, 

468-470. 
how to avoid certain dangers of, 

469, 470. 
Proposition, the, definition of, 247. 
importance of, 247-249. 
must be thought out, 249, 250. 
may be coextensive with text, 25 1, 
may embody the principal truth 

of text, 251. 
may be a general principle in a 

particular instance, 251-253. 
may embody a subordinate truth 

of text, 253. 
may be a general principle in one 

of its applications, 253-255. 
may be a general truth found in 

a less general, 255, 256. 
may be a mere name given to the 

text, 256, 257. 
should not set forth a theme that 

has no connection with text, 

258, 259. 
should not accommodate text, 

259-263. 
should not degrade text, 264. 
should not set forth an idea merely 

hinted in text, 264, 265. 
may be declarative, titular, or 

interrogative, 265, 266/ 
should be precisely expressed, 

266, 267. 
should not be metaphorical, 267- 

269. 
not the same as the title of the 

sermon, 269. 
Psalms used as hymns, 54. 
Punctuation a form of expression, 

363- 

Quintilian, 481, 486, 488. 
Quotation should be sparingly in- 
dulged in, 319. 

Rae, John, 422. 
Reading, lack of, 9. 



INDEX 



549 



aloud, 37, 38. 

in connection with amplification 
of plan, 3I7-3I9- 
Reading the hymn, with genuine 
feeling, 47, 48. 

rhythmic pauses in, 48. 

faults in, 48, 49. 
Reading the Scriptures in the con- 
gregation, history of, 34, 35. 

is devotional, 36. 

prejudice against care in, 38. 

expression in, 40. 

with comments, 43, 44. 

selection of lessons for, 44. 

faults of pronunciation in, 44, 45. 

in prayer-meeting, 95, 96. 
Repetition of sermons, to same con- 
gregation, 405, 406. 

to different congregations, 406. 

often expedient, 407, 408. 
Revision of written sermon, 369, 

370- 
Revivals, effects of, 441. 
principles of, 441-446. 
arise out of the nature of the soul, 

44 2 . 443- 

promoted by social contact, 444, 

445- 
divinely appointed, 445. 
preparation for, 446. 
personal motives in, 446. 
personal work in, 447. 
direction of singing in, 447. 
preaching in, 447, 448. 
professional evangelists in, 448, 

449. 
acts of committal in, 449, 450. 
irregularities in, 450. 
guidance of penitents in, 450-453. 
hopefulness in, 453. 
deepest secret of success in, 453, 

454- 
Ripley, Henry J., 268. 
Robert II. of France, 58. 
Robertson, F. W., 129, 155, 191, 

202, 236, 296, 309, 311, 336, 

394. 473. 522. 
Rubenstein, 500. 
Ruskin, 198. 

Salvation Army, 131, 420. 
Saurin, 287. 



Scribe, the preacher as a, 105. 
Self-abandonment, the fundamental 
principle of eloquence, 489, 
490. 

in other arts, 490, 491. 

interfered with by remarks about 
one's self, 491. 

interfered with by attention to 
one's physical condition, 491. 

interfered with by embarrass- 
ment, 492-494. 
Self-concentration on the audience, 
illustrated by authors, 496. 

illustrated by lawyers and musi- 
cians, 497, 498. 

unfavorable to apostrophes, 498. 

awakens responses, 498, 499. 

wins the apathetic hearer, 499, 
500. 

requires tact, 500, 501. 

makes speech familiar, 501, 502, 
504- 

promoted by good architecture, 
502, 503- 

individualizes the congregation, 
503- 
Self-concentration on the object of 
preaching, often neglected, 

504. 505- 
importance of, 505, 506. 
will influence choice of subjects, 

506, 507-. 

illustrated in other callings, 507. 
will influence the hearer's will, 

507, 5o8. 
Self-concentration on the subject of 

preaching, independent of mode 
of preparation, 495. 
necessity of, 495, 496. 

Self-love not the same as selfish- 
ness, 236. 

Sensuousness in worship, 23-25. 

Serial topics, in prayer-meeting, 95. 
in preaching, 398, 399. 

Shedd, Dr. W. G. T., 109. 

Simeon, Charles, 300, 301. 

Simpson, Bishop Matthew, no, 
201, 205, 354, 395, 408, 504. 

Singing, by the whole congregation, 

49. 5°- 
by the choir and the soloist, 50- 
52. 



550 



INDEX 



by the impenitent, 52, 53. 

before preaching, 54. 

in revivals, 447. 
Skinner, Dr. Thomas H., 374. 
Social themes, neglect of, 412. 

closely related to the salvation of 
souls, 423, 424. 
South, Dr. Robert, 226, 288, 350, 

5"- 
Speech, an expression of the self, 
1, 2. 
compared with vocal music, 371, 

372. 
compared with writing, 379, 380. 
Spirit of the sermon, the, endan- 
gered in sermonizing, 384. 
a spirit of humanity, 385-390. 
a spirit of spirituality, 390-394. 
the supreme example of, 395, 
396. 
Spirituality, a quality of preaching, 
390, 39 1- 
a higher sympathy, 391. 
will attract men, 392-394. 
Spurgeon, 5, 113, 227, 301, 306, 

346, 395. 467. 5°4> 525- 
Stalker, Dr. James, 78, 79, 107, 

365- 
Stanley, Dean, 149. 
Storrs, Dr. R. S., 342, 462. 
Stuart, Dr. Moses, 5. 
Style, inevitableness of, 358, 359. 
must be cultivated, 359, 360. 
all-comprehensive quality of, 

360-363. 
how made natural, 371. 
how made clear, 371-378. 
how made colloquial, 378-380. 
how made picturesque, 380-383. 
Subdivisions, may be taken from the 
text, 129. 
must sometimes be distinctly 
marked, 311. 
Suffering a means of spiritual know- 
ledge, 150, 151. 
Summerfield, 329, 349, 394, 537. 
Sunday-school, the, 427. 
origin of, 427. 
the church discipling the children, 

427. 
the Bible service, 429, 430. 
Sympathy, how blunted, 10, 11. 



in prayer, 78, 79. 

in Scripture reading, 42, 43. 

Talmage, 207, 261, 262. 
Taste, universal, 5. 

does not follow the fashions, 6. 
Taylor, Bishop William, 385. 
Taylor, Dr. William M., 116, 191, 
209, 223, 254, 301, 348, 351, 

353- 

Technical terms, interpretation of, 
136. 
produce obscurity, 372—375. 
Temperance, texts for preaching on, 
412. 
promoted through social agencies, 

413- 

will finally prevail, 413. 
Tennyson, 47. 
Texts, the germs of discourse, 101. 

why used, 102. 

in primitive pulpit, 103. 

in preaching of prophets, apos- 
tles, and our Lord, 104, 105. 

an intellectual stimulus, 105, 106. 

spiritually helpful, 106, 107. 

reminder of preacher's commis- 
sion, 107, 108. 

standing to hear announced, 108. 

promotive of variety in preaching, 
108, 109. 

importance of choice of, 109. 

should be genuine, 1 10. 

should be correctly translated, 
no. 

may be words of a Bible charac- 
ter, no, in. 

should be taken from different 
parts of the Bible, 112. 

one or more, 113, 114. 

long and short, 115, 116. 

epitome, 116, 117. 

plain or obscure, 118. 

pathetic, sublime, 118-120. 

grotesque, 120. 

unfamiliar, 120. 

familiar, 121. 

fruitful, 121, 122. 

specific, 121, 122. 

fragmentary or complete, 122- 
126. 

treatment of, 126. 



INDEX 



551 



Textual sermons, 127-129. 

Textual-topical sermons, 129, 130. 

Thiers, 379. 

Tholuck, 4. 

Thomas of Celano, 59. 

Topical sermons, 126, 127. 

Trade, the good of, 415. 

the evil of, 415. 

positive doctrine of, 416. 
Trench, R. C, 284. 
Trumbull, H. C, 432. 

Unction, the secret of, 394, 395. 

Vandyck, of Beirut, 535. 
Vanity, in worship, 20. 

a cause of embarrassment, 492, 

493- 

Van Oosterzee, 330, 409. 
Vinet, 290, 343. 

Walker, Samuel, of Truro, 493. 
Walsh, Rev. Thomas, 537. 
Watson, Richard, 21, 129, 262, 287, 

319- 

Watts, Dr. Isaac, 61, 271. 
Webster, Daniel, 167, 177. 
Wesley, Charles, 63, 225, 443. 
Wesley, John, 3, 56, 75, 76, no, 



118, 148, 161, 289, 292, 319, 
338, 344, 393. 407, 475, 4^6, 
487, 506, 520, 537. 
Whately, Archbishop, 180. 
Wheatly, Rev. Charles, 138. 
Whipple, Bishop, 60. 
Whitefield, 161, 194, 304, 403, 473, 

474, 478. 
Whittier, 219, 513. 
Williams, George, 535. 
Will-power expressed in style, 361. 
Worship, a ministry, 17. 

how related to the sermon, 17. 
an act, 17. 

in what sense divine service, 18. 
as a testimony, 19, 20. 
houses of, 66. 

the minister as priest in, 67. 
Writing sermons, does not insure 
good preparation, 461. 
not necessary to memoriter 

preaching, 464, 465. 
should sometimes be done with- 
out reference to delivery, 467, 
468. 
as a preparation for extempora- 
neous preaching, 468, 469. 

Zincke, Rev. F. B., 517. 



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